Collaborative Research: Design, Flight Control, and Autonomous Navigation of Bioinspired Morphing Micro Aerial Vehicles for Operation in Confined Spaces

合作研究：用于密闭空间操作的仿生变形微型飞行器的设计、飞行控制和自主导航

• 批准号: 2140650
• 负责人: Koushil Sreenath
• 金额: $ 38.26万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-05-15 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2140650&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Design; Flight; Control

This project will promote the progress of science in aerial robotics and advance the national prosperity and welfare, by creating bat-inspired drones that can operate in extremely confined spaces. There is an increased demand for fast, continuous environmental surveillance in city sewers. These confined spaces occupy a large portion of a city's infrastructure. However, today's conventional robots, including ground and aerial systems, cannot operate in a vast majority of sewers. Sewer networks present a veritable maze of pipes, chambers, and utility holes that pose tremendous challenges for robot locomotion control and navigation. Therefore, human operators still inspect these dangerous spaces. In addition to carrying many risks for humans, manned operations in these environments are costly and slow. This grant’s research will contribute to the design of aerial, bat-inspired robots that can operate in sewers, by mimicking bat aerial locomotion principles in caves. The results from this research will greatly benefit the society. Especially during a pandemic, the continuous and automated monitoring of a city’s aging sewer systems using these bat-inspired drones can play a vital role in saving human lives. For instance, SARS-CoVs can be present in wastewater for several days, and its early detection in sewers in 2019 could have allowed for increased preparedness in combating the current pandemic. This project trains new generation scientists, engineers, and technologists with interdisciplinary skills, providing future professionals with vertically integrated, use-inspired experiential learning activities.Today's rotary-wing drones are better solutions for inspection and monitoring city infrastructure than ground robots because they are scalable, inexpensive, easy to deploy, and possess fast mobility. However, these systems cannot fly inside tight areas such as tunnels with small cross-sections because they rely on powerful and continuous air jets. So far, the confined space applications of these drones include only flying inside buildings or very spacious confined environments, which are not comparable to the application of aerial robots in sewers. This research will allow drones to complete fully autonomous flights inside tight spaces such as sewer galleries. The research team will (i) use an integrated mechanical intelligence and control framework to design drones with dynamically versatile body conformations and significant computational complexity to prevent creation of powerful air jets, (ii) design an integrated model-based and data-driven flight control framework that captures not only the model uncertainty but also the environmental aerodynamic effects that arise due to flight in tunnels, and (iii) develop a novel navigation framework that relies on high-level abstract guidance extracted from sewer schematic diagrams, enabling robust navigation in unmapped environments.This project is supported by the cross-directorate Foundational Research in Robotics program, jointly managed and funded by the Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).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.

该项目将通过创建蝙蝠风格的无人机来促进空中机器人技术的进步，并促进国家的繁荣和福利，从而在极限狭窄的空间中运行。城市下水道对快速，连续的环境监视的需求增加。这些狭窄的空间占据了城市基础设施的很大一部分。但是，当今的常规机器人，包括地面和航空系统，都无法在绝大多数下水道中运行。下水道网络提出了真正的管道，室和公用事业孔的迷宫，对机器人机车控制和导航构成了巨大挑战。因此，人类操作员仍在检查这些危险的空间。除了承担许多人类风险外，在这些环境中的载人行动还昂贵且缓慢。这项拨款的研究将有助于通过模仿蝙蝠的蝙蝠空中机车原理，从而有助于在下水道中设计空中，蝙蝠风格的机器人。这项研究的结果将使社会受益匪浅。尤其是在大流行期间，使用这些受蝙蝠启发的无人机对城市老化的下水道系统进行持续和自动的监测可能在挽救人类生命中发挥至关重要的作用。例如，SARS-COV可以存在于废水中几天，并且其在2019年在下水道中的早期检测可以增加在打击当前大流行方面的准备。该项目通过跨学科技能培训新一代科学家，工程师和技术人员，为未来的专业人员提供垂直集成，使用的专家学习活动。TODAY的旋转 - 旋转无人机比地面机器人是检查和监测城市基础设施的更好解决方案，因为它们是可扩展的，廉价的，廉价的，易于扩展的，易于展示，易于展开和潜在的快速迁移和潜在的快速流动性。但是，这些系统不能在较小的区域内飞行，例如带有小横截面的隧道，因为它们依靠强大且连续的空气飞机。到目前为止，这些无人机的狭窄空间应用仅包括在建筑物内飞行或非常宽敞的密闭环境，这些环境与下水道中的空中机器人的应用不相同。这项研究将使无人机能够在下水道画廊等狭窄空间内完全自动飞行。 The research team will (i) use an integrated mechanical intelligence and control framework to design drones with dynamically versatile body Conformations and significant computational complexity to prevent creation of powerful air jets, (ii) design an integrated model-based and data-driven flight control framework that captures not only the model uncertainty but also the environmental aerodynamic effects that arise due to flight in tunnels, and (iii) develop a novel navigation framework that relies on high-level abstract guidance extracted from sewer schematic diagrams, enabling robust navigation in unmapped environments.This project is supported by the cross-directorate Foundational Research in Robotics program, jointly managed and funded by the Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed precious of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts审查标准。