A survey of onboard sensors for quadrotor's collision avoidance

Abstract

The quadrotor control system with the reactive Collision Avoidance System (CAS) function always require environmental information acquired directly from the onboard sensors. Without the input instruments, quadrotor system may not function to its full potential. In some cases, sensor capability is undermining the quadcopter collision avoidance algorithm and reduces the overall system performance. However, an appropriate sensor selection for a quadrotor requires special consideration such as processor capability, CAS algorithm execution and payload constrains. Motivated by that phenomena, this study presents a survey of onboard sensor for quadrotor CAS that has been developed and implemented. Fundamental collision avoidance system frameworks, some important issues in quadrotors CAS design requirements, several collision avoidance algorithms from previous works and sensor selection considerations are reviewed. Furthermore, three different practical sensors that were used in quadrotors system are nominated in this study including ultrasonic sensor, vision sensor and LIDAR. The advantages of each onboard sensors for collision avoidance are summarized in the conclusion.