Prof. Nathan Michael

University of Pennsylvania (USA)

 

Autonomous 3-D Flight and Cooperative Control of Multiple Micro Aerial Vehicles

There are now tens of thousands of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in operation but most UAVs are not autonomous. There are very few micro UAVs capable of navigating indoor or urban environments. I will describe our recent work on control and planning for multi-rotor micro UAVs in complex environments. I will also describe approaches to cooperative control enabling such tasks as persistent surveillance, cooperative manipulation and transport of large payloads.

 

 

Prof. Nicolas Franceschini

Biorobotics Lab, Institute of Movement Science,

CNRS and University of the Mediterranean (France)

 

Insect-inspired optic flow sensors and autopilots for MAV flight control

Insects have been navigating swiftly through most unpredictable environments for several millions of centuries. They actuate their control surfaces by their visual sensors in the most direct way by using fly-by-wire technology. I will describe our recent attempts to decipher the basic principles used by insects to measure and make use of optic flow to avoid terrains and obstacles. I will also show how we transcribed insect-inspired optic flow sensors and autopilots into electronics, and implemented them onboard terrestrial and aerial robots over the past 25 years.

 

 

Dr. Mark Reeder

Air Force Institute of Technology (USA)

 

Micro Air Vehicle design

 

 

Micro air vehicle design, by its nature, is highly multi-disciplinary. Improving upon MAV designs will likely require advances in fast-response non-linear controls, integrated propulsion and lift mechanisms, as well as a better understanding of unsteady low Reynolds aerodynamics and flexible structures. Likewise, comprehensive testing of existing MAV designs is also a significant challenge. This talk will provide an overview of ongoing fundamental research into Micro Air Vehicles at the (US) Air Force Institute of Technology and will also cover some of the more general ongoing USAF activities centered around MAVs.