Title:
Design, Development, and Testing of a Low Cost, Fully Autonomous Indoor Unmanned Aerial System
Design, Development, and Testing of a Low Cost, Fully Autonomous Indoor Unmanned Aerial System
Author(s)
Chowdhary, Girish
Sobers, D. Michael Jr.
Salaün, Erwan
Ottander, John
Johnson, Eric N.
Sobers, D. Michael Jr.
Salaün, Erwan
Ottander, John
Johnson, Eric N.
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Abstract
This paper is concerned with the design, development, and autonomous flight testing of
the GT Lama indoor Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). The GT Lama is a fully autonomous
rotorcraft UAS capable of indoor area exploration. It weighs around 1.3 lbs (600 gms), has
a width of about 27.6 inches (70 cm), and costs less than USD 900. The GT Lama employs
only five off-the-shelf, extremely low-cost range sensors for navigation. The GT Lama does
not rely on other expensive and sophisticated sensors, including inertial measurement units, Laser based range scanners, and GPS. The GT Lama achieves this by using simple wall
following logic to ensure that maximum perimeter of an indoor environment is explored in
a reasonable amount of time. The GT Lama hardware, and the Guidance, Navigation, and
Control (GNC) algorithms used are discussed in detail. The details of a MATLAB based
method that facilitates rapid in
flight validation of GNC algorithms on real flight hardware
is also discussed. Results from
flight tests as the GT Lama autonomously explores indoor
environments are presented.
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Date Issued
2010-08
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Text
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Paper