Abstract:
We define a system architecture for a large swarm of miniature quadcopters flying in dense formation indoors. The large number of small vehicles motivates novel design ch...Show MoreMetadata
Abstract:
We define a system architecture for a large swarm of miniature quadcopters flying in dense formation indoors. The large number of small vehicles motivates novel design choices for state estimation and communication. For state estimation, we develop a method to reliably track many small rigid bodies with identical motion-capture marker arrangements. Our communication infrastructure uses compressed one-way data flow and supports a large number of vehicles per radio. We achieve reliable flight with accurate tracking (<; 2 cm mean position error) by implementing the majority of computation onboard, including sensor fusion, control, and some trajectory planning. We provide various examples and empirically determine latency and tracking performance for swarms with up to 49 vehicles.
Date of Conference: 29 May 2017 - 03 June 2017
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 24 July 2017
ISBN Information: