AERO initiative

Goals

The Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (EPFL-ETHZ) encompass many laboratories that are developing and/or using aerial robots for many different research purposes.

Issues faced by these researchers are often similar. Experience gained in one project can often be useful in other ones. Based on this observation, people from various laboratories decided to meet on a regular basis in order to exchange their experience and knowledge, explain their projects, discuss technical problems, organize demonstrations, etc. So was born the "Aerial Robotics Initiative", code-named AERO.

The main goal of this initiative is to promote unmanned aerial robotics at EPFL & ETHZ by:

maintaining a web portal () to the different active projects in this field;
support students willing to develop their own project in this field (e.g., AERO Weekends);
offering links to available student projects in the different laboratories active in this field;
providing a constantly updated list of ongoing and upcoming events related to the field (see the news box on the right and the aerial robotics competitions on the left).

Laboratories active in Unmanned Aerial Robotics

muFly project

The goal of muFly is to design a fully autonomous helicopter comparable in size and weight to a small bird.

Link to muFly project website

Project OS4

OS4* is an electrically powered four-rotors miniature helicopter developed towards fully autonomous operation in indoor/outdoor environments.

The major goal of this research is the development and implementation of an active control system for a quadrotor helicopter.

Link to OS4 project page

Project Sky-Sailor

The goal of the this project is to develop a fully functional prototype of a solar powered micro-glider for autonomous exploration. This system, named Sky-Sailor, will be fully autonomous in navigation and power generation. It shall be able to take-off autonomously from a mobile ground station or a Lander and to stay in the air for days and weeks, following given exploration tasks.

Link to Sky-Sailor project page

Bio-inspired Vision-based Flying Robots

In this project, we explore an approach whereby robust vision-based behaviors emerge out of the coordination of several visuo-motor components that can directly link simple visual features to motor commands. Biological inspiration is taken from insect vision and evolutionary algorithms are used to evolve efficient neural networks. The resulting controllers select, develop, and exploit visuo-motor components that are tailored to the information relevant for the particular environment, robot morphology, and behavior.

Link to the Bio-inspired Vision-based Flying Robots page

The Eyebots Project

Eyebots are autonomous flying quadrotor robots with powerful sensing and communication abilities for search, monitoring, and pathfinding in built environments. Eyebots operate in swarm formation, as honeybees do, to efficiently explore built environments, locate predefined targets, and guide other robots or humans. Eyebots are part of the Swarmanoid, a European research project aimed at developing an heterogeneous swarm of wheeled, climbing, and flying robots that can carry out tasks normally assigned to humanoid robots. Within the Swarmanoid, Eyebots serve the role of eyes and guide other robots with simpler sensing abilities.

Link to the Eyebots project page

Self Deploying Microglider Project

In this project we aim at developing a palm sized robot of around 10g that can climb up walls, deploy itself into the air, recover from every position in air and perform subsequent goal directed gliding and attachment to walls. The applications of this novel platform are widespread and can include sensory networks for environmental monitoring, disaster relief or be used for planetary exploration.

Link to the Self Deploying Microglider page

Swarming MAVs for Communication Relay

The goal of this project is to demonstrate the use of swarming Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) as robust RF communication relay. Each MAV will navigate autonomously based on swarm intelligence, using distributed control and onboard sensors. The primary goal of the aerial swarm is to establish a robust and low-power communication link between a base station and other user stations located on ground.

Link to the Swarming MAVs page

Innovative Interface for Teleoperation

VRlab is quite active in the domain of teleoperation. We have already demonstrated the potential of the Haptic Workstation as a teleoperation interface for controlling a mobile robot. We are currently working on the development of a much more powerful interface for piloting an airship equipped with multiple video cameras: the VRlab's Zeppelin. The objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of using virtual interfaces with haptic feedback for allowing a single operator to control several vehicles (airships, cars, etc.)

Link to the project page

19.04.2008 The robotic festival at EPFL will have a session on flying robotics

18.04.2008 AERO meeting in Lausanne, with people from both EPFL and ETHZ

22-27.10.2007 Samir Bouabdallah, André Noth and Jean-Christophe Zufferey tour the West Coast of the US with their "Unconventional Aerial Robotics Made in Switzerland" organized by Swissnex and Think Swiss.

3.07.2007 The book Advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, State of the Art and the Road to Autonomy, co-authored by two members of Aero, is out [Springer, Amazon].

12-17.08.2007 The Flying Robots and Insects symposium is partly organized by AERO members.

16.05.2007 Petter Murren (Proxflyer SA) will visit ASL-ETHZ. He will give a presentation at 1:30pm in room CLA E32.

23.01.2007 AERO meeting at the ETHZ in Zurich.

01.07.2006 muFly project started at ASL the goal is to built a micro autonomous helicopter comparable in size and weight to a small bird.

01.07.2006 ASL Lab headed by Prof. Siegwart moved from EPFL to ETH Zürich. ASL will continue its activity in aerial robotics at ETHZ

20.12.2005 at 12:15 in room ELA2: quick-off presentation of AERO Weekends for Robopoly people.

23.11.2005 FAI sends its warmest thanks to AERO for its participation to FAI Centenary Meeting by means of a diploma.

04.11.2005 First announcement of the 2006 Smartrob Contest at EPFL. This contest has a Flying Robot Category.

26-28.08.2005 FAI Centenary Airshow, Lausanne. Aero team will be present from 27.08 in Lausanne Airport (La Blecherette).

22.04.2005 First 24h solar flight from midnight to midnight by AC-Propulsion Team on El Mirage Dry Lake, California (pdf). Sky-Sailor plans to overcome the night in the next 2 months...

25.08.2004 Sucessful experiment of autonomous steering (course stabilization and obstacle avoidance) with a 30-gram indoor aircraft using only inertial information (rate gyro) and optic flow provided by two miniature 1D video cameras. See video. Link to webpage.

Goals

Laboratories active in Unmanned Aerial Robotics

Participation to "Meeting de la Blécherette"