Session 9: UUVs and UAVs

Abstract

This session included five presentations on recent results on various aspects of autonomous flying robots and autonomous underwater robots, with the ultimate goal to increase the robustness and capabilities for these systems.

The first paper, “Autonomous Autorotation of an RC Helicopter” by Abeel, Coates, Hunter, and Ng describes a control strategy for safely descending an autonomous helicopter when the engine dies. Flight data from a human-controlled autorotation and landing maneuvers is used to learn a dynamic model, including the rotor speed dynamics in the power-off flight regime. Human demonstrations are also used to define the autorotation task in terms of three phases: gliding, flaring, and landing. Finally, differential dynamic programming is used to find a feedback controller. The autonomous autorotation system was evaluated extensively on an RC helicopter.