An Unmanned Helicopter for Autonomous Flights in Urban Terrain

Abstract

This work summarizes a multi-disciplinary research project, focusing on key enabling techniques towards true autonomous flight of small, low flying VTOL UAVs. Research activities cover the flying testbed, a simulation and testing environment, as well as integrated components for onboard navigation, perception, planning and control. Promising results and feasibility demonstrations in flight tests underline the successful domain specific enhancements of approaches based on aeronautical engineering, computer science and mobile robotics. The current approaches pave the way towards further research in improved flight control performance and more system autonomy when a-priori mission uncertainties increase.