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Applied Sciences
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Autonomous Flying Robots: Recent Developments and Future Prospects
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Autonomous Flying Robots: Recent Developments and Future Prospects

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Robotics and Automation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (21 October 2021) | Viewed by 13118

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Corrado Santoro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Catania, Viale Andrea Doria, 6, 95125 Catania CT, Italy
Interests: multi-agent system; distributed artificial intelligence; autonomous mobile robots; autonomous flying robots
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

“Drones are here to stay. Get used to it”. This statement, reported by Time Magazine [1], clearly suggests that, in the near future, we will live in a world where drones will be objects that will pervade our lives. Their behaviour will be based on pieces of software that will drive navigation in an autonomous way, performing actions accordingly to the objective of the specific mission. However, while the state-of-art is currently able to provide good technological solutions, there are still many open challenges that call for the intervention of researchers.

On this basis, this Special Issue aims to gather innovative research solutions in the field of autonomous flying robots, including control algorithms related to attitude stability, Kalman filtering, sensor fusion, up to (but not limited to) software architectures, autonomous mission planners, energy optimisation techniques, etc.

A special attention will be given to papers dealing with multi-robot approaches [2] since the use of flocks or swarms of autonomous flying robots for applications like aerial survey, victim rescue, land inspection and monitoring, seems to be the next research frontier in the field of drones.

Safety, security, and privacy are also key aspects of autonomous flying robots; since it is expected that such robots will operate in real environments, avoiding any kind of hazard for people and animals is mandatory, while simultaneously ensuring that, during their operations, no kind of unauthorized access to them or external control would be possible and that privacy of people is always preserved.

We thus strongly encourage researchers and investigators to contribute to this Special Issue with their original research papers.

[1] https://time.com/longform/time-the-drone-age/

[2] Massimiliano De Benedetti, Fabio D'Urso, Giancarlo Fortino, Fabrizio Messina, Giuseppe Pappalardo, Corrado Santoro: A fault-tolerant self-organizing flocking approach for UAV aerial survey. Journal of Network and Computer Application, 96: 14-30 (2017)

Dr. Corrado Santoro
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Flight control algorithms and techniques
  • Software architectures for flight control units
  • Simulation platforms and tools
  • Autonomous mission planning
  • Energy optimisation
  • Safety, Security and Privacy
  • Multi-robot exploration and coverage algorithms
  • Multi-robot planning
  • Self-organizing approaches

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 19951 KiB  
Article
Long Distance Moving Vehicle Tracking with a Multirotor Based on IMM-Directional Track Association
by Seokwon Yeom
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(23), 11234; https://doi.org/10.3390/app112311234 - 26 Nov 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1513
Abstract
The multirotor has the capability to capture distant objects. Because the computing resources of the multirotor are limited, efficiency is an important factor to consider. In this paper, multiple target tracking with a multirotor at a long distance (~400 m) is addressed; the [...] Read more.
The multirotor has the capability to capture distant objects. Because the computing resources of the multirotor are limited, efficiency is an important factor to consider. In this paper, multiple target tracking with a multirotor at a long distance (~400 m) is addressed; the interacting multiple model (IMM) estimator combined with the directional track-to-track association (abbreviated as track association) is proposed. The previous work of the Kalman estimator with the track association approach is extended to the IMM estimator with the directional track association. The IMM estimator can handle multiple targets with various maneuvers. The track association scheme is modified in consideration of the direction of the target movement. The overall system is composed of moving object detection for measurement generation and multiple target tracking for state estimation. The moving object detection consists of frame-to-frame subtraction of three-color layers and thresholding, morphological operation, and false alarm removing based on the object size and shape properties. The centroid of the detected object is input into the next tracking stage. The track is initialized using the difference between two nearest points measured in consecutive frames. The measurement nearest to the state prediction is used to update the state of the target for measurement-to-track association. The directional track association tests both the hypothesis and the maximum deviation between the displacement and directions of two tracks followed by track selection, fusion, and termination. In the experiment, a multirotor flying at an altitude of 400 m captured 55 moving vehicles around a highway interchange for about 20 s. The tracking performance is evaluated for the IMMs using constant velocity (CV) and constant acceleration (CA) motion models. The IMM-CA with the directional track association scheme outperforms other methods with an average total track life of 91.7% and an average mean track life of 84.2%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Autonomous Flying Robots: Recent Developments and Future Prospects)
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17 pages, 5576 KiB  
Article
Scale-Variant Flight Planning for the Creation of 3D Geovisualization and Augmented Reality Maps of Geosites: The Case of Voulgaris Gorge, Lesvos, Greece
by Ermioni-Eirini Papadopoulou, Apostolos Papakonstantinou, Nikolaos Zouros and Nikolaos Soulakellis
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(22), 10733; https://doi.org/10.3390/app112210733 - 13 Nov 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1782
Abstract
The purpose of this paper was to study the influence of cartographic scale and flight design on data acquisition using unmanned aerial systems (UASs) to create augmented reality 3D geovisualization of geosites. The relationship between geographical and cartographic scales, the spatial resolution of [...] Read more.
The purpose of this paper was to study the influence of cartographic scale and flight design on data acquisition using unmanned aerial systems (UASs) to create augmented reality 3D geovisualization of geosites. The relationship between geographical and cartographic scales, the spatial resolution of UAS-acquired images, along with their relationship with the produced 3D models of geosites, were investigated. Additionally, the lighting of the produced 3D models was examined as a key visual variable in the 3D space. Furthermore, the adaptation of the 360° panoramas as environmental lighting parameters was considered. The geosite selected as a case study was the gorge of the river Voulgaris in the western part of the island of Lesvos, which is located in the northeastern part of the Aegean Sea in Greece. The methodology applied consisted of four pillars: (i) scale-variant flight planning, (ii) data acquisition, (iii) data processing, (iv) AR, 3D geovisualization. Based on the geographic and cartographic scales, the flight design calculates the most appropriate flight parameters (height, speed, and image overlaps) to achieve the desired spatial resolution (3 cm) capable of illustrating all the scale-variant details of the geosite when mapped in 3D. High-resolution oblique aerial images and 360° panoramic aerial images were acquired using scale-variant flight plans. The data were processed using image processing algorithms to produce 3D models and create mosaic panoramas. The 3D geovisualization of the geosite selected was created using the textured 3D model produced from the aerial images. The panoramic images were converted to high-dynamic-range image (HDRI) panoramas and used as a background to the 3D model. The geovisualization was transferred and displayed in the virtual space where the panoramas were used as a light source, thus enlightening the model. Data acquisition and flight planning were crucial scale-variant steps in the 3D geovisualization. These two processes comprised the most important factors in 3D geovisualization creation embedded in the virtual space as they designated the geometry of the 3D model. The use of panoramas as the illumination parameter of an outdoor 3D scene of a geosite contributed significantly to its photorealistic performance into the 3D augmented reality and virtual space. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Autonomous Flying Robots: Recent Developments and Future Prospects)
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28 pages, 11833 KiB  
Article
Preliminary Results of a Hybrid Thermoelectric Propulsion System for a Multirotor UAS with Active Rectifying, Electronic Throttle Control and Supercapacitors
by Manés F. Cabanas, Salvador B. Duque, Juan D. González, Francisco P. González and María G. Fernández
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(17), 7899; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11177899 - 27 Aug 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2280
Abstract
The main drawback of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) is that almost their entire field of application is autonomous in terms of energy. Flights beyond 50 min are nearly impossible when using conventional energy storage systems (lithium-ion polymer or lithium-ion batteries). Several commercial products [...] Read more.
The main drawback of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) is that almost their entire field of application is autonomous in terms of energy. Flights beyond 50 min are nearly impossible when using conventional energy storage systems (lithium-ion polymer or lithium-ion batteries). Several commercial products have been developed using hybrid systems (H-UAS). Although the improvement they have provided is undeniable, H-UAS in the present market are strongly limited by their low thrust vs. weight ratio, which is caused by limited electrical power generation and a non-optimal energy conversion with relatively low efficiencies. This paper reviews these systems to show the preliminary results of a prototype of hybrid generator which state-of-the-art electronics as well as a new approach using a supercapacitor (SC) array are used to save fuel, increase the thrust vs. weight ratio, optimize losses during conversion and prevent the overheating of the internal combustion unit (ICU). Whereas current generators mostly operate with the ICU at a constant speed, delivering maximum power, the presented prototype includes a throttle control system, and the engine works with a variable regime according to the power demand. Thus, fuel consumption is reduced, as well as heating and wear. The lifespan of the engine is also increased, and the time between maintenance operations is lengthened. The designed system provides almost twice the power of the hybrid current generators. The reduction in the RPM regime of the engine is achieved by means of a supercapacitor array that provides the necessary energy to keep the DC output power constant during the engine acceleration when the flight envelope experiences a perturbation or a sudden manoeuvre is performed by the pilot. To obtain maximum efficiency, the diode rectifiers and conventional converters used in the reviewed products are replaced by synchronous converters and rectifiers. The whole system is controlled by means of a FPGA where a specific control loop has been implemented for every device: ICU’s throttle, DC bus converter, charge and discharge of the SC’s array, cooling and monitoring of temperature for the cylinders heads, and on-line transmission, by means of a XBEE™ module, of all the monitored data to the flight ground station. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Autonomous Flying Robots: Recent Developments and Future Prospects)
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15 pages, 18286 KiB  
Article
VAGADRONE: Intelligent and Fully Automatic Drone Based on Raspberry Pi and Android
by Saifeddine Benhadhria, Mohamed Mansouri, Ameni Benkhlifa, Imed Gharbi and Nadhem Jlili
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(7), 3153; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11073153 - 1 Apr 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 6324
Abstract
Multirotor drones are widely used currently in several areas of life. Their suitable size and the tasks that they can perform are their main advantages. However, to the best of our knowledge, they must be controlled via remote control to fly from one [...] Read more.
Multirotor drones are widely used currently in several areas of life. Their suitable size and the tasks that they can perform are their main advantages. However, to the best of our knowledge, they must be controlled via remote control to fly from one point to another, and they can only be used for a specific mission (tracking, searching, computing, and so on). In this paper, we intend to present an autonomous UAV based on Raspberry Pi and Android. Android offers a wide range of applications for direct use by the UAV depending on the context of the assigned mission. The applications cover a large number of areas such as object identification, facial recognition, and counting objects such as panels, people, and so on. In addition, the proposed UAV calculates optimal trajectories, provides autonomous navigation without external control, detects obstacles, and ensures live streaming during the mission. Experiments are carried out to test the above-mentioned criteria. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Autonomous Flying Robots: Recent Developments and Future Prospects)
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