Quadrotor with wheels: design and experimental evaluation

Abstract

Quadrotors have found widespread use in indoor applications, including tracking and mapping. In general, to carry out such tasks effectively, a navigation solution should provide both accuracy and battery efficiency. To achieve both, we propose a cost-effective and lightweight wheeled quadrotor that combines both driving and flying capabilities. Our design allows the quadrotor to perform both functions seamlessly. We provide a detailed description of the design and construction process, highlighting its advantages. Our focus was on the Tello quadrotor, which weighs 80 grams. Our design allowed driving capability with an increased weight of only fifteen grams, resulting in less than 20% of the added weight. Furthermore, we evaluate the quadrotor’s pure inertial navigation performance and corresponding battery consumption by employing various flying and driving patterns. Our results show that when only driving the battery consumption was the lowest with 10% and some flying scenarios improve the positioning error by more than 70%.