Fast, autonomous flight in GPS‐denied and cluttered environments

• Published in: Journal of field robotics Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 101 - 120
• Main Authors: Mohta, Kartik, Watterson, Michael, Mulgaonkar, Yash, Liu, Sikang, Qu, Chao, Makineni, Anurag, Saulnier, Kelsey, Sun, Ke, Zhu, Alex, Delmerico, Jeffrey, Karydis, Konstantinos, Atanasov, Nikolay, Loianno, Giuseppe, Scaramuzza, Davide, Daniilidis, Kostas, Taylor, Camillo Jose, Kumar, Vijay
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.01.2018
• Subjects: aerial robotics; Autonomous navigation; collision avoidance; field robots; Flight; Global positioning systems; GPS; localization; mapping; motion and path planning; motion control; Navigation; Robots; Robustness (mathematics); Satellite navigation systems; sensor fusion; Systems design
• ISSN: 1556-4959; 1556-4967
• DOI: 10.1002/rob.21774

One of the most challenging tasks for a flying robot is to autonomously navigate between target locations quickly and reliably while avoiding obstacles in its path, and with little to no a priori knowledge of the operating environment. This challenge is addressed in the present paper. We describe the system design and software architecture of our proposed solution and showcase how all the distinct components can be integrated to enable smooth robot operation. We provide critical insight on hardware and software component selection and development and present results from extensive experimental testing in real‐world warehouse environments. Experimental testing reveals that our proposed solution can deliver fast and robust aerial robot autonomous navigation in cluttered, GPS‐denied environments.