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

合作研究：NRI：FND：用于非结构化环境中安全人类互动的飞群

• 批准号: 2024692
• 负责人: Mark Yim
• 金额: $ 37.5万
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2024692&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; NRI; FND; Flying

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.

虽然飞行机器人变得越来越普遍，但它们的集群有可能在各种情况下有用，例如监视和信息显示。目前，成群飞行的机器人难以与人类互动，原因有两个：它们几乎无处不在地依赖于外部传感，如GPS或运动捕捉系统，以及由于使用危险的高速螺旋桨而对人类造成的固有危险。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因素，这些机器人可以在人类周围安全地运行。它们将仅使用机载传感器与彼此和人类进行交互，并可以在广泛的非结构化环境中运行。 Swarm的能力将在两种情况下得到证明：自主3D形状形成，其中群自组装用户指定的形状，以及第二种情况下，人类使用他们的手移动到一个所需的形状群。该项目研究飞行无人机及其控制方面，以允许创建大型飞行群，不依赖于外部定位，可以安全地与人类互动，而且蜂群有无限的耐力 该无人机采用了一种新颖的单致动器设计，以实现低成本的群体创建，以及促进人类安全的轻型无人机。无人机在快速旋转的底盘上使用红外收发器来感测邻近无人机的方位、高度和距离，并向它们传输数据。 它们还有一个飞行时间测距仪来感应附近的被动物体。 这种感知将用于控制个体相对于其邻居的位置，并通过自然的人类互动控制群体行为。 通过让无人机轮流参与蜂群形状，然后飞回基站充电，来延长蜂群的续航时间。 这个群集然后充电的循环在群中重复和交错，因此总是有无人机参与群行为。这个奖项反映了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。