Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Collaborating Low Cost Micro Aerial Vehicles: A Demonstration

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9287))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 1534 Accesses

Abstract

In this paper we demonstrate our Distributed Collaborative Tracking and Mapping (DCTAM) system for collaborative localisation and mapping with teams of Micro-Aerial Vehicle’s MAVs. DCTAM uses a distributed architecture which allows us to run both image capture and frame-to-frame tracking on-board the MAV while offloading the more computationally demanding tasks of map creation/refinement to an off-board computer. The low computational cost of the localisation components of our system allow us to run additional software on-board such as an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) for full state estimation and a PID-based Position Controller. This allows us to demonstrate complete cooperative autonomous operation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Weiss, S., Scaramuzza, D., Siegwart, R.: Monocular-slam-based navigation for autonomous micro helicopters in gps-denied environments. J. Field Robot. 28(6), 854–874 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Engel, J., Sturm, J., Cremers, D.: Camera-based navigation of a low-cost quadrocopter. In: 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 2815–2821. IEEE (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Wendel, A., Maurer, M., Graber, G., Pock, T., Bischof, H.: Dense reconstruction on-the-fly. In: 2012 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR). IEEE

    Google Scholar 

  4. Forster, C., Pizzoli, M., Scaramuzza, D.: Svo: fast semi-direct monocular visual odometry. In: 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Engel, J., Schöps, T., Cremers, D.: LSD-SLAM: large-scale direct monocular SLAM. In: Fleet, D., Pajdla, T., Schiele, B., Tuytelaars, T. (eds.) ECCV 2014, Part II. LNCS, vol. 8690, pp. 834–849. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Mur-Artal, R., Tardós, J.D.: Fast relocalisation and loop closing in keyframe-based slam. In: 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Fox, D., Burgard, W., Kruppa, H., Thrun, S.: A probabilistic approach to collaborative multi-robot localization. Autonomous robots 8(3), 325–344 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Özkucur, N.E., Akın, H.L.: Cooperative multi-robot map merging using fast-SLAM. In: Baltes, J., Lagoudakis, M.G., Naruse, T., Ghidary, S.S. (eds.) RoboCup 2009. LNCS, vol. 5949, pp. 449–460. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Carlone, L., Ng, M.K., Du, J., Bona, B., Indri, M.: Rao-blackwellized particle filters multi robot slam with unknown initial correspondences and limited communication. In: 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 243–249. IEEE (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Forster, C., Lynen, S., Kneip, L., Scaramuzza, D.: Collaborative monocular slam with multiple micro aerial vehicles. In: 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 3962–3970. IEEE (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Riazuelo, L., Civera, J., Montiel, J.: C 2 tam: A cloud framework for cooperative tracking and mapping. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 62(4), 401–413 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Williams, R., Konev, B., Coenen, F.: Multi-agent environment exploration with AR.Drones. In: Mistry, M., Leonardis, A., Witkowski, M., Melhuish, C. (eds.) TAROS 2014. LNCS, vol. 8717, pp. 60–71. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Klein, G., Murray, D.: Parallel tracking and mapping for small ar workspaces. In: ISMAR 2007. 6th IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, 2007, pp. 225–234. IEEE (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Quigley, M., Conley, K., Gerkey, B., Faust, J., Foote, T., Leibs, J., Wheeler, R., Ng, A.Y.: Ros: an open-source robot operating system. In: ICRA Workshop on Open Source Software, vol. 3 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Richard Williams, Boris Konev & Frans Coenen

Authors
  1. Richard Williams
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Boris Konev
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Frans Coenen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard Williams .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Clare Dixon

  2. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Karl Tuyls

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Williams, R., Konev, B., Coenen, F. (2015). Collaborating Low Cost Micro Aerial Vehicles: A Demonstration. In: Dixon, C., Tuyls, K. (eds) Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. TAROS 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9287. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22416-9_33

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22416-9_33

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-22415-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-22416-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation