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Modelling, Control and Perception for an Autonomous Robotic Airship

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Book cover Sensor Based Intelligent Robots

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2238))

Abstract

Robotic unmanned aerial vehicles have an enormous potential as observation and data-gathering platforms for a wide variety of applications. These applications include environmental and biodiversity research and monitoring, urban planning and traffic control, inspection of man-made structures, mineral and archaeological prospecting, surveillance and law enforcement, communications, and many others. Robotic airships, in particular, are of great interest as observation platforms, due to their potential for extended mission times, low platform vibration characteristics, and hovering capability. In this paper we provide an overview of Project AURORA (Autonomous Unmanned Remote Monitoring Robotic Airship), a research effort that focusses on the development of the technologies required for substantially autonomous robotic airships. We discuss airship modelling and control, autonomous navigation, and sensor-based flight control. We also present the hardware and software architectures developed for the airship. Additionally, we discuss our current research in airborne perception and monitoring, including mission-specific target acquisition, discrimination and identification tasks. The paper also presents experimental results from our work.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Technology Institute, 13081, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Alberto Elfes, Samuel S. Bueno, Josué J. G. Ramos, Ely C. de Paiva, Marcel Bergerman, José R. H. Carvalho, Silvio M. Maeta, Luiz G. B. Mirisola & Bruno G. Faria

  2. Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing - FAW, 89073, Ulm, Germany

    Alberto Elfes

  3. IDMEC/IST, Instituto Superior Técnico, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal

    José R. Azinheira

Authors
  1. Alberto Elfes
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  2. Samuel S. Bueno
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  3. Josué J. G. Ramos
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  4. Ely C. de Paiva
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  5. Marcel Bergerman
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  6. José R. H. Carvalho
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  7. Silvio M. Maeta
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  8. Luiz G. B. Mirisola
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  9. Bruno G. Faria
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  10. José R. Azinheira
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

    Gregory D. Hager

  2. Center for Autonomous Systems, CVAP, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

    Henrik Iskov Christensen

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Bern, German

    Horst Bunke

  4. Institute for Computer Science I, University of Bonn, USA

    Rolf Klein

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Elfes, A. et al. (2002). Modelling, Control and Perception for an Autonomous Robotic Airship. In: Hager, G.D., Christensen, H.I., Bunke, H., Klein, R. (eds) Sensor Based Intelligent Robots. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2238. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45993-6_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45993-6_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43399-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45993-4

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