I-Corps: Tethered Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial and Ground System for Autonomous Targeted Distribution of Fluid Delivery

I-Corps：用于自主定向流体输送分配的系留异构无人机和地面系统

• 批准号: 1950161
• 负责人: Liang Sun
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: New Mexico State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-15 至 2020-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1950161&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Tethered; Heterogeneous; Unmanned; Aerial

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project focuses on the development of an intelligent robotic platform that offers secured, persistent, reliable, and autonomous solutions to time-consuming, complicated, and costly tasks of spraying fluid onto targeted areas, such as precision agriculture, private and public safety, utility inspection, search and rescue, telecommunication, traffic monitoring, news gathering, and defense. The technology provides a way to autonomously apply fluid (i.e., air or liquid) onto a specified large space or to pinpoint adaptively the areas that need to be targeted specifically. The technology offers 1) long-duration operation time and fast data processing using the uninterrupted power and data transmission provided by the tether in conjunction with the hose, 2) the intelligent coordination among physically-connected components (i.e., the aerial robot, hose, and ground subsystem), and 3) the machine learning/AI-based autonomous sensing, decision-making, data analytics, self-localization, navigation, and control capabilities. In addition, this platform provides a safety solution to the failure of control and power systems of the aerial robot. This I-Corps project will be an autonomous aerial robotic system towing a flexible hose connected to a mobile ground subsystem to provide autonomous, persistent, robust, and precision hosing capabilities. This system is uniquely designed and developed by applying rigid-body-dynamics theory, fluid-dynamics theory, control/estimation theory, machine-learning/artificial-intelligent (ML/AI) technologies, and rigorous design, fabrication, and testing processes. The success of this technology will advance the knowledge and understanding in fluid-dynamics, modeling, decision making, and control of towed-hose/tethered drone systems. The development of the self-localization and autonomous control algorithms are based on the sophisticated system dynamics that has not been well explored before. In addition, the pressure of fluid flowing through the hose and its effects on the dynamics of the holistic system have not been investigated, nor the data-driven ML/AI-based guidance, coordination, and control techniques for such systems. In previous studies and development via theoretical inference, software simulations, and lab experimental tests, this technology has shown its promising capabilities of self-localization and self-stabilization/control using only onboard commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) sensors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力侧重于开发智能机器人平台，该平台为向目标区域喷洒流体的耗时、复杂且昂贵的任务提供安全、持久、可靠和自主的解决方案，例如例如精准农业、私人和公共安全、公用事业检查、搜索和救援、电信、交通监控、新闻采集和国防。该技术提供了一种将流体（即空气或液体）自动施加到指定大空间或自适应地精确定位需要专门针对的区域的方法。该技术提供 1) 长时间运行和快速数据处理，使用系绳与软管结合提供的不间断电源和数据传输，2) 物理连接组件（即空中机器人、软管、和地面子系统），3）基于机器学习/人工智能的自主感知、决策、数据分析、自定位、导航和控制能力。此外，该平台还为空中机器人的控制和动力系统故障提供了安全解决方案。该 I-Corps 项目将是一个自主空中机器人系统，牵引连接到移动地面子系统的柔性软管，以提供自主、持久、稳健和精确的软管能力。该系统是应用刚体动力学理论、流体动力学理论、控制/估计理论、机器学习/人工智能（ML/AI）技术以及严格的设计、制造和测试过程而独特设计和开发的。这项技术的成功将增进人们对拖曳软管/系留无人机系统的流体动力学、建模、决策和控制的认识和理解。自定位和自主控制算法的发展基于以前尚未充分探索的复杂系统动力学。此外，尚未研究流经软管的流体压力及其对整个系统动力学的影响，也没有研究此类系统的数据驱动的基于机器学习/人工智能的指导、协调和控制技术。在之前的研究和开发中，通过理论推论、软件模拟和实验室实验测试，该技术已经展示了仅使用机载商用现成（COTS）传感器进行自定位和自稳定/控制的有前景的能力。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。