Autonomous Wall-Following Based Navigation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Indoor Environments

Abstract

This paper presents a wall-tracking approach for navigation of a quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in indoor environments. Navigation of a UAV in indoor environments is particularly challenging due to unavailability of Global Position System (GPS) data. Furthermore, unavailability of prior knowledge about obstacles makes it hard to carry out any a− priori path planning. In this paper, a method based on wall-tracking is proposed to enable a quadrotor UAV to navigate across an indoor environment. The UAV is equipped with four proximity sensors around it that can give the distance from the nearest obstacle in that linear direction. Hence, the UAV is capable of tracking around the walls and obstacles while keeping a fixed distance from the wall on its left. An autonomous algorithm is developed for this purpose which enables the UAV to detect and turn around corners, slanted walls, and closed areas. The UAV starts from a random position in an environment, moves towards the nearest wall, and starts tracking the wall from there. This approach is very useful for navigating areas that consist of multiple rooms, and the UAV needs to cross a room to enter a second room. Such capabilities in a UAV can find applications in situations which might otherwise be inaccessible or dangerous for humans, such as collapsed buildings, radioactive or HazMat conditions, and small conduits.