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A novel guidance and navigation system for MAVs capable of autonomous collision-free entering of buildings

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Abstract

Micro Aerial Vehicles for autonomous explorations of hazardous areas are predestined to support emergency and rescue forces. Especially the autonomous access to buildings is highly demanding due to insufficient GNSS reception in urban terrain and narrow passageways into buildings. Thus, this paper presents a complete flight system, consisting of guidance, navigation and control subsystems. All these elements are designed to enable safe flights into buildings. The guidance subsystem is divided into two parts. The vision based guidance part is manoeuvring the MAV on an intermediate position in front of the building. The potential field based guidance part enables the MAV to fly inside the buildings without having any collisions. For that, neither any prior knowledge about the building structure, nor any maps are necessary. To provide the flight guidance with information about the actual kinematic state of the MAV an accurate and robust navigation system not depending on GNSS measurements is used. The complete system is evaluated using simulated flight data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. KIT–Institute of Systems Optimization (ITE), Karlsruhe, Germany

    M. Popp, S. Prophet, G. Scholz & G. F. Trommer

  2. ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    G. F. Trommer

Authors
  1. M. Popp
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  2. S. Prophet
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  3. G. Scholz
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  4. G. F. Trommer
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Correspondence to M. Popp.

Additional information

Published in Giroskopiya i Navigatsiya, 2015, No. 2, pp. 3–17.

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Popp, M., Prophet, S., Scholz, G. et al. A novel guidance and navigation system for MAVs capable of autonomous collision-free entering of buildings. Gyroscopy Navig. 6, 157–165 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2075108715030128

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S2075108715030128

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