Abstract
Two bio-inspired guidance principles involving no reference frame are presented here and were implemented in a rotorcraft, which was equipped with panoramic optic flow (OF) sensors but (as in flying insects) no accelerometer. To test these two guidance principles, we built a tethered tandem rotorcraft called BeeRotor (80 grams), which was tested flying along a high-roofed tunnel. The aerial robot adjusts its pitch and hence its speed, hugs the ground and lands safely without any need for an inertial reference frame. The rotorcraft’s altitude and forward speed are adjusted via two OF regulators piloting the lift and the pitch angle on the basis of the common-mode and differential rotor speeds, respectively. The robot equipped with two wide-field OF sensors was tested in order to assess the performances of the following two systems of guidance involving no inertial reference frame: (i) a system with a fixed eye orientation based on the curved artificial compound eye (CurvACE) sensor, and (ii) an active system of reorientation based on a quasi-panoramic eye which constantly realigns its gaze, keeping it parallel to the nearest surface followed. Safe automatic terrain following and landing were obtained with CurvACE under dim light to daylight conditions and the active eye-reorientation system over rugged, changing terrain, without any need for an inertial reference frame.
Highlights
Miniature insect-scale robots (Ma et al 2013), just like micro aerial vehicles (MAVs), have to be able to make their way autonomously through cluttered, highly moving environments, e.g. foliage moving with the wind, and cope with unpredictable events
As we have shown in a previous study (Roubieu et al 2012a), by taking the median value of the output of several local motion sensors (LMSs), we stronlgy increase the accuracy of the optic flow (OF) measurements and of the visuomotor control loops as it strongly decreases the noise and the unreliable measurements which are unavoidable in natural environments
The advantages of not using an accelerometer are that the strategies we presented here could be embedded into the lightest of robots, such as the insect-scale aerial robot weighing only a few hundred milligrams recently developed by Ma et al (2013)
Summary
Commons Attribution 3.0 Two bio-inspired guidance principles involving no reference frame are presented here and were licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain flying insects) no accelerometer To test these two guidance principles, we built a tethered tandem attribution to the author (s) and the title of the rotorcraft called BeeRotor (80 grams), which was tested flying along a high-roofed tunnel. The aerial work, journal citation and robot adjusts its pitch and its speed, hugs the ground and lands safely without any need for an DOI. The robot equipped with two wide-field OF sensors was tested in order to assess the performances of the following two systems of guidance involving no inertial reference frame: (i) a system with a fixed eye orientation based on the curved artificial compound eye (CurvACE) sensor, and (ii) an active system of reorientation based on a quasi-panoramic eye which constantly realigns its gaze, keeping it parallel to the nearest surface followed. Safe automatic terrain following and landing were obtained with CurvACE under dim light to daylight conditions and the active eye-reorientation system over rugged, changing terrain, without any need for an inertial reference frame
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