Al‐Robotics team: A cooperative multi‐unmanned aerial vehicle approach for the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotic Challenge. Issue 1 (9th September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Castaño, Ángel R.; Real, Fran; Ramón‐Soria, Pablo; Capitán, Jesús; Vega, Víctor; Arrue, Begoña C.; Torres‐González, Arturo; Ollero, Aníbal
• Other Names: Dias Jorge guestEditor.; Lima Pedro U. guestEditor.; Seneviratne Lakmal guestEditor.; Khatib Oussama guestEditor.; Tadokoro Satoshi guestEditor.; Dario Paolo guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Journal of field robotics. Volume 36:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 104
• Page End: 124
• Publication Date: 2018-09-09
• Subjects: aerial robotics -- cooperative robots -- robot competition; Robots, Industrial -- Periodicals; Automatic control -- Periodicals; 629.892
• DOI: 10.1002/rob.21810
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1556-4959

Abstract

Abstract: The Al‐Robotics team was selected as one of the 25 finalist teams out of 143 applications received to participate in the first edition of the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotic Challenge (MBZIRC), held in 2017. In particular, one of the competition Challenges offered us the opportunity to develop a cooperative approach with multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) searching, picking up, and dropping static and moving objects. This paper presents the approach that our team Al‐Robotics followed to address that Challenge 3 of the MBZIRC. First, we overview the overall architecture of the system, with the different modules involved. Second, we describe the procedure that we followed to design the aerial platforms, as well as all their onboard components. Then, we explain the techniques that we used to develop the software functionalities of the system. Finally, we discuss our experimental results and the lessons that we learned before and during the competition. The cooperative approach was validated with fully autonomous missions in experiments previous to the actual competition. We also analyze the results that we obtained during the competition trials.