15 accepted papers
Mobile robots have revolutionized various fields, offering solutions for manipulation, environmental monitoring, and exploration. However, payload capacity remains a limitation. This paper presents a novel thrust-based robotic hopper capable of carrying payloads up to 9 times its own weight while ma…
We present a hybrid aerial-ground robot that combines the versatility of a quadcopter with enhanced terrestrial mobility. The vehicle features a passive, reconfigurable single wheeled leg, enabling seamless transitions between flight and two ground modes: a stable stance and a dynamic cruising confi
This letter reports an aerial robot–Quadrolltor, with the ability to roll and turn. Existing bimodal quadrotors feature cylindrical rolling cages that are rotationally decoupled from the robot's main rigid body. In contrast, the proposed robot employs passively reconfigurable structures to enable th
Traditional fixed-wing vehicles are equipped with multiple active aerodynamic surfaces for flight control. This inevitably necessitates several actuators, complicates the mechanical structure, and adversely impacts the flight efficiency, particularly for small aerial vehicles. As a lightweight and e
The letter proposes a passive wall following strategy for a multirotor robot based on the aerodynamic interaction between the propeller wake and the vertical surface. To reinforce the proximity effects, a vehicle with tilted and ducted propellers is introduced. Momentum theory is employed to elucida
This letter proposes an efficient visual-inertial estimator for aerial robots. The main contribution lies in the direct use of intensity measurements of the latest image frames and key frame via both continuous and regular homographic relations under an assumption of a single planar scene. The filte
This letter proposes a reactive navigation strategy for recovering the altitude, translational velocity and orientation of Micro Aerial Vehicles. The main contribution lies in the direct and tight fusion of Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) measurements with monocular feedback under an assumption of a
We introduce SplitFlyer-a novel quadcopter with an ability to disassemble into two self-contained bicopters through human assistance. As a subunit, the bicopter is a severely underactuated aerial vehicle equipped with only two propellers. Still, each bicopter is capable of independent flight. To ach…
This paper addresses the problem of cooperative transport of a point mass hoisted by two aerial robots. Treating the robots as a leader and a follower, the follower stabilizes the system with respect to the leader using only feedback from its Inertial Measurement Units (IMU). This is accomplished by…
Despite advances in localization and navigation, aerial robots inevitably remain susceptible to accidents and collisions. In this letter, we propose a passive foldable airframe as a protective mechanism for a small aerial robot. A foldable quadrotor is designed and fabricated using the origami-inspi
Motivated by a winged seed, which takes advantage of a wing with high angles of attack and its associated leading-edge vortex to boost lift, we propose a powered 13.8gram aerial robot with the maximum take-off weight of 310 mN (31.6 gram) or thrust-to-weight ratio of 2.3. The robot, consisting of tw…
Motivated by the potential of bimodal aerial and surface locomotion as an energy saving strategy for small flying robots, we investigate the effects of a flat overhang surface in the vicinity of a spinning propeller. We employ the classical momentum theory and the blade element method to describe th…
At millimeter and centimeter scales, flapping-wing robots often employ flexural passive wing hinges to eliminate extra actuation and mechanical complexity. In this paper, we propose a modified quasi-steady model for predicting aerodynamic forces from a flapping wing with a passively rotating hinge.…
Without sufficient payload capacity to carry necessary electronic components, flying robots at the scale of insects cannot fly autonomously. Using a simple scaling heuristic to determine a few salient vehicle properties, we develop a vehicle design that possesses the requisite payload capacity for t…
Despite having achieved unconstrained stable flight, the insect-scale flapping-wing robot is still tethered for power and control. Towards the goal of operating a biologically-inspired robot autonomously outside of laboratory conditions. In this paper, we simulate outdoor disturbances in the laborat…