Collaborative Research: NRI: FND: Flying Swarm for Safe Human Interaction in Unstructured Environments

虽然飞行机器人正变得司空见惯，但它们中的一大群有可能在监视和信息显示等各种情况下发挥作用。目前，成群的飞行机器人由于两个因素而难以与人类互动：它们几乎无处不在地依赖外部传感，如GPS或运动捕捉系统，以及它们使用危险的高速螺旋桨对人类构成固有的危险。该项目将通过设计和创造一个由200多个飞行机器人组成的新型群体来解决这两个问题，这些机器人可以安全地在人周围操作。它们将只使用车载传感来与彼此和人类互动，并可以在广泛的非结构化环境中操作。群的能力将在两种情况下演示：自主3D形状形成，群自组装成用户指定的形状，以及第二种情况，人用手将群移动到所需的形状。该项目研究飞行无人机的各个方面及其控制，以允许创建不依赖外部定位的大型飞行群，可以安全地与人类互动，并且群具有无限的耐力。无人机采用了新颖的单执行器设计，以实现低成本的蜂群创建，以及促进轻型无人机的人类安全。无人机在快速旋转的底盘上使用红外收发器来感知方位、仰角和与邻近无人机的距离，并向它们传输数据。他们还有一个飞行时间测距仪来感知附近的被动物体。这种感知将被用来控制个体相对于其邻居的位置，并通过自然的人类互动来控制群体行为。通过让无人机轮流参与蜂群形状，然后飞回基站充电，延长了蜂群的耐力。这种蜂群和充电的循环在蜂群中重复和交错，因此总是有无人机参与蜂群行为。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

While flying robots are becoming commonplace, swarms of them have the potential to be useful in a wide variety of cases such as surveillance and informational displays. Currently, flying swarms of robots have difficulty interacting with humans due to two factors: their almost ubiquitous reliance on external sensing, such as GPS or motion-capture systems, and their inherent danger to humans due to their use of hazardous high-speed propellers. The project will address these two factors by designing and creating a novel swarm of over 200 flying robots that are safe to operate around people. They will use only on-board sensing to interact with each other and humans and can operate in a wide range of unstructured environments. The swarm capabilities will be demonstrated in two scenarios: autonomous 3D shape formation, where the swarm self-assembles a user-specified shape, and a second scenario where a human uses their hands to move the swarm into a desired shape.This project investigates aspects of flying UAVs and their control to allow the creation of large flying swarms that are not reliant on external positioning, can safely interact with humans, and where the swarm has infinite endurance. The UAV uses a novel single actuator design to enable the low-cost creation of the swarm, as well as facilitate lightweight UAVs for human safety. The UAVs employ an infrared transceiver on a rapidly spinning chassis to sense bearing, elevation, and distance to neighboring UAVs, as well as transmit data to them. They also have a time-of-flight range finder to sense passive objects nearby. This sensing will be used to control the position of the individuals with respect to their neighbors and to enable swarm behaviors controlled through natural human interaction. The endurance of the swarm is extended by having UAVs take turns participating in the swarm shape, and then fly back to the base station to recharge. This cycle of swarming and then charging is repeated and staggered amongst the swarm so there are always UAVs participating in the swarm behavior.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.