PiDrone: An Autonomous Educational Drone Using Raspberry Pi and Python

Brand, Isaiah; Roy, Josh; Ray, Aaron; Oberlin, John; Oberlix, Stefanie

doi:10.1109/iros.2018.8593943

Cited by 25 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The PiDrone follows a similar parts list to [2] with a few improvements, making it safer and easier to build while remaining under $225. Notable hardware changes include the use of a Raspberry Pi HAT, an add-on board, to improve the accessibility of the build process and the robustness of arXiv:1910.03516v1 [cs.RO] 8 Oct 2019 [8].…”

Section: A Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The UKF provides state estimation via sensor fusion, but most mobile robots-the PiDrone included-do not include a sensor to directly measure position [12] [2]. As such, the PiDrone software stack implements both localization and SLAM using the particle filter and FastSLAM algorithms described in Probabilistic Robotics [12] and the FastSLAM paper [18].…”

Section: B Localizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The algorithm keeps track of particle motion, adding noisy translations and rotations to each particle in every frame. We tried using a velocity-based motion model where the velocity is provided by optical flow from the camera [2]; however, the low-cost camera is influenced by many factors such as light and its reflection. Instead, we use the transform between two frames as parameters for the motion model.…”

Section: B Localizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper focuses on making advanced autonomy accessible to individuals with no robotics experience. We build on the low-cost educational platform introduced in [2] by adding advanced algorithms for state estimation, localization, and SLAM. The algorithms are implemented in Python and documented in novel course projects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are some open-source drone platforms for advanced college-level courses; however, these are not suitable for students with less background in engineering and robotics [2]. The PiDrone platform and course were created to fill this gap.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Advanced Autonomy on a Low-Cost Educational Drone Platform

Eller

Guerin

Huang

et al. 2019

2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

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PiDrone is a quadrotor platform created to accompany an introductory robotics course. Students build an autonomous flying robot from scratch and learn to program it through assignments and projects. Existing educational robots do not have significant autonomous capabilities, such as high-level planning and mapping. We present a hardware and software framework for an autonomous aerial robot, in which all software for autonomy can run onboard the drone, implemented in Python. We present an Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) for accurate state estimation. Next, we present an implementation of Monte Carlo (MC) Localization and Fast-SLAM for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The performance of UKF, localization, and SLAM is tested and compared to ground truth, provided by a motion-capture system. Our evaluation demonstrates that our autonomous educational framework runs quickly and accurately on a Raspberry Pi in Python, making it ideal for use in educational settings.

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Section: A Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Localizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Localizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Advanced Autonomy on a Low-Cost Educational Drone Platform

Eller

Guerin

Huang

et al. 2019

2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

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Understanding the role of single‐board computers in engineering and computer science education: A systematic literature review

Ariza

Baez

2021

Comput Appl Eng Educ

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In the last decade, single‐board computers (SBCs) have been employed more frequently in engineering and computer science (CS) at both technical and educational levels. These devices are of importance to educators and students due to several factors such as the versatility, the low cost, and the possibility to enhance the learning process through technology. However, the implications, possibilities, and constraints of these devices in engineering and CS education have not been explored in detail. In this systematic literature review, we explore how the SBCs are employed in engineering and CS and what educational results are derived from their usage in the period 2010–2020 at tertiary education level. For this, 154 studies were selected out of n = 605 collected from the academic databases Ei Compendex, Inspec, and ERIC. The analysis was carried out in two phases, identifying, for example, areas of application, learning outcomes, and students' and researchers' perceptions. The results of the review mainly indicate the following aspects: (1) The areas of laboratories and e‐learning, computing education, robotics, Internet of Things, and persons with disabilities gather the studies in the review. (2) Researchers highlight the importance of the SBCs to transform the curricula in engineering and CS for the students to learn complex topics through experimentation in hands‐on activities. (3) The typical cognitive learning outcomes reported by the authors are the improvement of the students' grades and the technical skills regarding the topics in the courses. Concerning the affective learning outcomes, the increase of interest, motivation, and engagement is commonly reported by the authors.

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