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Analytics for Real-Time Inertial Localization of the Tethered Aircraft Unmanned System

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Experimental Robotics (ISER 2023)

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics ((SPAR,volume 30))

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Abstract

The Tethered Aircraft Unmanned System enables long-term distributed sampling at altitude via an array of sensor suites embedded along the power tether. As the aircraft traverses the location of the sensors along the tether and during operation remains unknown. In this work, we propose an inertial-based method for estimating real-time localization of the sensor array. We have integrated an inertial measurement unit into each sensor suite and the orientation of each sensor is transformed into the world frame using a Madgwick estimator. The power tether is modeled as an asymmetric catenary which enables us to define a subspace of the explorable volume for system initialization and periodic online re-calibrations. The system flew numerous curvilinear trajectories in a laboratory setting. Analysis of the intercomparison between our approach and Vicon ground truth positional data shows average RMSE of 0.524, 0.493, and 0.625 m in the N, E, and D axes after 10 s, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported in part by NSF-DGE-1735362, NSF-IIS-1925052, NSF-IIS-1925368, NASA-ULI-80NSSC-20M0162. Also, this work received support from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Grant number 2023-67021-38977 with accession number 1029656 from the Cyber-Physical Systems program, as well as the grants NEB-21-176 and NEB-21-166 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Plant Health and Production and Plant Products: Plant Breeding for Agricultural Production; and the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute.

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Correspondence to Daniel A. Rico .

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Rico, D.A., Muñoz-Arriola, F., Bradley, J.M., Detweiler, C.J. (2024). Analytics for Real-Time Inertial Localization of the Tethered Aircraft Unmanned System. In: Ang Jr, M.H., Khatib, O. (eds) Experimental Robotics. ISER 2023. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-63596-0_42

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