Mini-UAVs swarm creates a buzz

MIT researchers aim to demonstrate autonomous operations with squadron of 10 unmanned rotorcraft this year

A demonstration of autonomous swarming by 10 small rotorcraft unmanned air vehicles is the year-end goal of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers, following successful formation flights by groups of between three and five UAVs.

MIT's Department of Aeronautics is this month testing autonomous landings on battery recharge pads. The university's researchers are using 300g battery-powered quad-rotor UAVs as test platforms for its experiments, including co-ordinated autonomous surveillance missions.

Up to five of the unmanned rotorcraft have tracked miniature autonomous ground vehicles, using an indoor positioning system for guidance.

In September, a quad-rotor UAV using a monocular-vision guidance system autonomously landed on a moving target, a remote-controlled laboratory cart. The UAV's ground station computed the manoeuvres necessary to achieve the landing. The MIT team is sponsored by Boeing's Phantom Works.

"The focus now is landing on a recharging platform. Doing that autonomously is a way of maintaining persistence. The UAV's four feet land on electrodes and we need to do that carefully," says aeronautics and astronautics associate professor Jonathan How, leader of the MIT research team.

The UAVs can take off and land autonomously and have health management systems and adaptive controls for abrupt flight performance changes.

Researchers have used computers linked to the swarm to introduce sudden changes such as the appearance of new targets or the loss of a swarm member.

The long-term goal is to create a squadron of UAVs that requires little human supervision, covers a wide area, automatically decides when vehicles need refuelling and when new members are required to replace lost, damaged or grounded vehicles. The squadron could provide 24h surveillance or operate as a communications network.

Source: Flight International