Robust Active Visual Perching With Quadrotors on Inclined Surfaces

Jeffrey Mao; Stephen Nogar; Christopher M. Kroninger; Giuseppe Loianno

doi:10.1109/TRO.2023.3238911

Robust Active Visual Perching With Quadrotors on Inclined Surfaces

Jeffrey Mao, Stephen Nogar, Christopher M. Kroninger, Giuseppe Loianno

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Autonomous micro aerial vehicles are deployed for a variety of tasks including surveillance and monitoring. Perching and staring allow the vehicle to monitor targets without flying, saving battery power and increasing the overall mission time without the need to frequently replace batteries. This article addresses the active visual perching (AVP) control problem to autonomously perch on inclined surfaces up to <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$90^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula>. Our approach generates dynamically feasible trajectories to navigate and perch on a desired target location while taking into account actuator and field-of-view constraints. By replanning in midflight, we take advantage of more accurate target localization increasing the perching maneuver's robustness to target localization or control errors. We leverage the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions to identify the compatibility between planning objectives and the visual sensing constraint during the planned maneuver. Furthermore, we experimentally identify the corresponding boundary conditions that maximize the spatio-temporal target visibility during the perching maneuver. The proposed approach works on-board in real time with significant computational constraints relying exclusively on cameras and an inertial measurement unit. Experimental results validate the proposed approach and show a higher success rate as well as increased target interception precision and accuracy compared to a one-shot planning approach, while still retaining aggressive capabilities with flight envelopes that include large displacements from the hover position on inclined surfaces up to 90<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula>, angular speeds up to 750<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula>/s, and accelerations up to 10 m/s<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{2}$</tex-math></inline-formula>.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1-17
Number of pages	17
Journal	IEEE Transactions on Robotics
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2023.3238911
State	Accepted/In press - 2023

Keywords

Aerial robotics
Location awareness
Planning
Quadrotors
Robot sensing systems
Splines (mathematics)
Trajectory
Visualization
perception-aware planning
vision for robotics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Control and Systems Engineering
Computer Science Applications
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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10.1109/TRO.2023.3238911

Cite this

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title = "Robust Active Visual Perching With Quadrotors on Inclined Surfaces",

abstract = "Autonomous micro aerial vehicles are deployed for a variety of tasks including surveillance and monitoring. Perching and staring allow the vehicle to monitor targets without flying, saving battery power and increasing the overall mission time without the need to frequently replace batteries. This article addresses the active visual perching (AVP) control problem to autonomously perch on inclined surfaces up to $90^\circ$. Our approach generates dynamically feasible trajectories to navigate and perch on a desired target location while taking into account actuator and field-of-view constraints. By replanning in midflight, we take advantage of more accurate target localization increasing the perching maneuver's robustness to target localization or control errors. We leverage the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions to identify the compatibility between planning objectives and the visual sensing constraint during the planned maneuver. Furthermore, we experimentally identify the corresponding boundary conditions that maximize the spatio-temporal target visibility during the perching maneuver. The proposed approach works on-board in real time with significant computational constraints relying exclusively on cameras and an inertial measurement unit. Experimental results validate the proposed approach and show a higher success rate as well as increased target interception precision and accuracy compared to a one-shot planning approach, while still retaining aggressive capabilities with flight envelopes that include large displacements from the hover position on inclined surfaces up to 90$^\circ$, angular speeds up to 750$^\circ$/s, and accelerations up to 10 m/s$^{2}$.",

keywords = "Aerial robotics, Location awareness, Planning, Quadrotors, Robot sensing systems, Splines (mathematics), Trajectory, Visualization, perception-aware planning, vision for robotics",

author = "Jeffrey Mao and Stephen Nogar and Kroninger, {Christopher M.} and Giuseppe Loianno",

note = "Publisher Copyright: IEEE",

year = "2023",

doi = "10.1109/TRO.2023.3238911",

language = "English (US)",

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journal = "IEEE Transactions on Robotics",

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T1 - Robust Active Visual Perching With Quadrotors on Inclined Surfaces

AU - Mao, Jeffrey

AU - Nogar, Stephen

AU - Kroninger, Christopher M.

AU - Loianno, Giuseppe

N1 - Publisher Copyright: IEEE

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Autonomous micro aerial vehicles are deployed for a variety of tasks including surveillance and monitoring. Perching and staring allow the vehicle to monitor targets without flying, saving battery power and increasing the overall mission time without the need to frequently replace batteries. This article addresses the active visual perching (AVP) control problem to autonomously perch on inclined surfaces up to $90^\circ$. Our approach generates dynamically feasible trajectories to navigate and perch on a desired target location while taking into account actuator and field-of-view constraints. By replanning in midflight, we take advantage of more accurate target localization increasing the perching maneuver's robustness to target localization or control errors. We leverage the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions to identify the compatibility between planning objectives and the visual sensing constraint during the planned maneuver. Furthermore, we experimentally identify the corresponding boundary conditions that maximize the spatio-temporal target visibility during the perching maneuver. The proposed approach works on-board in real time with significant computational constraints relying exclusively on cameras and an inertial measurement unit. Experimental results validate the proposed approach and show a higher success rate as well as increased target interception precision and accuracy compared to a one-shot planning approach, while still retaining aggressive capabilities with flight envelopes that include large displacements from the hover position on inclined surfaces up to 90$^\circ$, angular speeds up to 750$^\circ$/s, and accelerations up to 10 m/s$^{2}$.

AB - Autonomous micro aerial vehicles are deployed for a variety of tasks including surveillance and monitoring. Perching and staring allow the vehicle to monitor targets without flying, saving battery power and increasing the overall mission time without the need to frequently replace batteries. This article addresses the active visual perching (AVP) control problem to autonomously perch on inclined surfaces up to $90^\circ$. Our approach generates dynamically feasible trajectories to navigate and perch on a desired target location while taking into account actuator and field-of-view constraints. By replanning in midflight, we take advantage of more accurate target localization increasing the perching maneuver's robustness to target localization or control errors. We leverage the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions to identify the compatibility between planning objectives and the visual sensing constraint during the planned maneuver. Furthermore, we experimentally identify the corresponding boundary conditions that maximize the spatio-temporal target visibility during the perching maneuver. The proposed approach works on-board in real time with significant computational constraints relying exclusively on cameras and an inertial measurement unit. Experimental results validate the proposed approach and show a higher success rate as well as increased target interception precision and accuracy compared to a one-shot planning approach, while still retaining aggressive capabilities with flight envelopes that include large displacements from the hover position on inclined surfaces up to 90$^\circ$, angular speeds up to 750$^\circ$/s, and accelerations up to 10 m/s$^{2}$.

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KW - vision for robotics

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Robust Active Visual Perching With Quadrotors on Inclined Surfaces

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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