Abstract
This work establishes COMPRA, a compact and reactive autonomy framework for fast deployment of Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) in subterranean Search-and- Rescue (SAR) missions. A COMPRA-enabled MAV is able to autonomously explore previously unknown areas while specific mission criteria are considered e.g. an object of interest is identified and localized, the remaining useful battery life, the overall desired exploration mission duration. The proposed architecture follows a low-complexity algorithmic design to facilitate fully on-board computations, including nonlinear control, state-estimation, navigation, exploration behavior and object localization capabilities. The framework is mainly structured around a reactive local avoidance planner, based on enhanced Potential Field concepts and using instantaneous 3D pointclouds, as well as a computationally efficient heading regulation technique, based on depth images from an instantaneous camera stream. Those techniques decouple the collision-free path generation from the dependency of a global map and are capable of handling imprecise localization occasions. Field experimental verification of the overall architecture is performed in relevant unknown Global Positioning System (GPS)-denied environments.
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Funding
Open access funding provided by Lulea University of Technology. This work has been partially funded in part by the European Unions Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Grant Agreements No. 869379 illuMINEation, No.101003591 NEXGEN-SIMS and in part by the Interreg Nord Programme ROBOSOL NYPS 20202891.
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Björn Lindqvist and Christoforos Kanellakis: Development, implementation, system integration and field work, relating to all presented submodules and developments, main manuscript contributors. Sina Sharif Mansouri: Software development and field expertise. Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi: Advisory, development lead for Team CoSTAR in DARPA SubT Challenge. George Nikolakopoulos: Advisory, manuscript contributions, head of Luleå University of Technology Robotics&AI Team. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.
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Lindqvist, B., Kanellakis, C., Mansouri, S.S. et al. COMPRA: A COMPact Reactive Autonomy Framework for Subterranean MAV Based Search-And-Rescue Operations. J Intell Robot Syst 105, 49 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-022-01665-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-022-01665-6