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Robotics Research pp 71–88Cite as

Tensile Web Construction and Perching with Nano Aerial Vehicles

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Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics ((SPAR,volume 2))

Abstract

Autonomous construction with aerial vehicles has great potential for in-situ repair and construction in hard-to-access areas. In this paper, we present and demonstrate a mechanism by which a team of autonomous nano aerial vehicles construct a multi-element tensile structure between anchor points in an irregular environment, such as a natural woodland. Furthermore, we demonstrate potential applications of such a structure to enable long-term position holding of aerial vehicles that are otherwise extremely limited in terms of available flight time due to energy constraints. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this mechanism, we develop the mechanical and electronic designs of two payload packages for attachment to nano quadrotor robots with a total integrated mass of only 26 g per robot, and we present the trajectory planning and control algorithms required to enable robust execution of the construction scheme.

Adam Braithwaite and Talib Alhinai contributed equally to this work.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) for financial support of this work. The authors would also like to extend their thanks to the participants, scientific panel and technical staff at the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London for their enthusiasm and support during the MEng Group Design Project, where some of the ideas presented in this paper were initially explored.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aerial Robotics Laboratory Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Adam Braithwaite, Talib Alhinai, Maximilian Haas-Heger, Edward McFarlane & Mirko Kovač

Authors
  1. Adam Braithwaite
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  2. Talib Alhinai
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  3. Maximilian Haas-Heger
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  4. Edward McFarlane
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  5. Mirko Kovač
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Talib Alhinai or Mirko Kovač .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy , Pisa, Italy

    Antonio Bicchi

  2. Inst. für Informatik, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg Inst. für Informatik, Freiburg, Germany

    Wolfram Burgard

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Braithwaite, A., Alhinai, T., Haas-Heger, M., McFarlane, E., Kovač, M. (2018). Tensile Web Construction and Perching with Nano Aerial Vehicles. In: Bicchi, A., Burgard, W. (eds) Robotics Research. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51532-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51532-8_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51531-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51532-8

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