A Single Motor Nano Aerial Vehicle with Novel Peer-to-Peer Communication and Sensing Mechanism

Communication and position sensing are among the most important capabilities for swarm robots to interact with their peers and perform tasks collaboratively. However, the hardware required to facilitate communication and position sensing is often too complicated, expensive, and bulky to be carried on swarm robots. Here we present Maneuverable Piccolissimo 3 (MP3), a minimalist, single motor drone capable of executing inter-robot communication via infrared light and triangulation-based sensing of relative bearing, distance, and elevation using message arrival time. Thanks to its novel design, MP3 can communicate with peers and localize itself using simple components, keeping its size and mass small and making it inherently safe for human interaction. We present the hardware and software design of MP3 and demonstrate its capability to localize itself, fly stably, and maneuver in the environment using peer-to-peer communication and sensing.

通信和位置感知是群体机器人与同伴互动并协作执行任务的最重要能力之一。然而，实现通信和位置感知所需的硬件往往过于复杂、昂贵且体积庞大，群体机器人难以搭载。在此，我们推出可灵活操控的超微型3号机（MP3），这是一款极简的单电机无人机，它能够通过红外光进行机器人间通信，并利用信息到达时间，基于三角测量法感知相对方位、距离和高度。得益于其新颖的设计，MP3可使用简单组件与同伴通信并实现自我定位，保持较小的尺寸和质量，且从本质上确保了与人类互动的安全性。我们介绍了MP3的硬件和软件设计，并展示了它借助点对点通信和感知在环境中实现自我定位、稳定飞行及灵活操控的能力。