Advanced Autonomous Navigation Systems for UAVs

多年来，技术创造了无数的机会和资源，塑造了我们生活和与世界互动的方式。无人驾驶飞行器(UAV)，俗称无人机，无疑是过去几十年来最重大的技术进步之一。无人机本质上是一种飞行机器人，可以远程控制或自主飞行，以执行给定的任务。无人机在无数民用和军事应用中正变得至关重要，如情报、安全和侦察(ISR)任务、搜救行动、基础设施检查、包裹递送等。这项技术具有巨大的潜力，可以在世界未来格局中发挥重要作用，为创造许多企业和就业机会做出贡献。运输无人机(个人飞行汽车和空中出租车)的发展，在这个时间点上看起来可能是一个虚构的想法，但很可能在未来几十年内成为现实。尽管研究界做出了巨大努力，并在这一领域取得了稳步进展，但仍有几个技术和监管问题需要解决，为实现完全自动驾驶无人机铺平道路。需要克服的最具挑战性的技术障碍涉及开发可靠的定位、感知、控制和决策系统，这些系统能够处理高度不可预测和极端的情况(例如，极端天气条件、非结构化环境、意想不到的障碍、感知限制等)。一旦这些问题得到解决，自动驾驶汽车的时代将指日可待。这一研究计划旨在解决与设计高效可靠的定位、感知和控制算法相关的几个具有挑战性的开放问题(被认为是该领域的阿喀琉斯之跟)。申请者的目标是建立一个世界级的自主导航系统尖端研究计划，以开发可靠的全自动无人机。

Over the years, technology has generated countless opportunities and resources which have shaped the way we live and interact with the world. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are undeniably among the most significant technological advances of the past few decades. A drone is essentially a flying robot that can be remotely controlled, or fly autonomously, to perform a given task. Drones are becoming crucial in countless civilian and military applications such as Intelligence, Security, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions, search and rescue operations, infrastructure inspection, package delivery, to name a few. This technology has huge potential in playing a major role in the world's future landscape, contributing to the creation of many businesses and jobs. The development of transportation drones (personal flying-cars and air-taxis), which might seem like a fictional idea at this point in time, will most likely become a reality in the next few decades. Despite the tremendous efforts of the research community and the steady progress in this field, there are still several technical and regulatory issues that need to be worked out to pave the path forward to fully autonomous UAVs. The most challenging technical hurdles to overcome are related to the development of reliable localization, perception, control and decision-making systems that are able to handle highly unpredictable and extreme situations (e.g., extreme weather conditions, unstructured environments, unexpected obstacles, sensing limitations, etc.). Once these problems worked out, the era of self-flying cars will be just around the corner. This research program aims at addressing several challenging open problems (considered as the Achilles heels in this field) related to the design of efficient and reliable localization, perception and control algorithms for advanced autonomous navigation systems. The applicant aims at establishing a world-class and cutting-edge research program on Autonomous Navigation Systems, towards the development of reliable fully autonomous UAVs.