Stefan Leutenegger, Christoph Hürzeler, Amanda K. Stowers, Kostas Alexis, Markus W. Achtelik, David
Lentink, Paul Y. Oh and Roland Siegwart
Unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) have drawn increasing attention recently, owing to advancements in related research, technology, and applications. While having been deployed successfully in military scenarios for decades, civil use cases have lately been tackled by the robotics research community.
This chapter overviews the core elements of this highly interdisciplinary field; the reader is guided through the design process of aerial robots for various applications starting with a qualitative characterization of different types of UAS. Design and modeling are closely related, forming a typically iterative process of drafting and analyzing the related properties. Therefore, we overview aerodynamics and dynamics, as well as their application to fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and flapping-wing UAS, including related analytical tools and practical guidelines. Respecting use-case-specific requirements and core autonomous robot demands, we finally provide guidelines to related system integration challenges.
AtlantikSolar field-trials
Author Kostas Alexis
Video ID : 602
This video presents a small subset of the Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL) activities that took place during the ICARUS Field Trials in Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium, 8-12 September 2014. The ASL fixed-wing team went there with the solar-powered AtlantikSolar UAV and presented its advanced capabilities regarding long endurance flight, advanced estimation and control, autonomous navigation for complete coverage and its perception capabilities for search and rescue and map reconstruction.
More information: http://www.fp7-icarus.eu/; www.asl.ethz.ch; www.atlantiksolar.ethz.ch