Advanced Autonomous Navigation Systems for UAVs

多年来，技术创造了无数的机会和资源，塑造了我们的生活和与世界互动的方式。无人机（UAV），通常被称为无人机，是过去几十年来最重要的技术进步之一。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变得至关重要，例如情报，安全和侦察（ISR）任务，搜索和救援行动，基础设施检查，包裹递送等。这项技术具有巨大的潜力，在世界未来的格局中发挥重要作用，有助于创造许多企业和就业机会。运输无人机（个人飞行汽车和空中出租车）的发展，在这个时候看起来像是一个虚构的想法，很可能在未来几十年内成为现实。尽管研究界付出了巨大的努力，这一领域也取得了稳步进展，但仍有一些技术和监管问题需要解决，以铺平通往完全自主无人机的道路。需要克服的最具挑战性的技术障碍与开发可靠的定位、感知、控制和决策系统有关，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、意外障碍物、感测限制等）。一旦这些问题得到解决，自动飞行汽车的时代将指日可待。该研究计划旨在解决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踵），这些问题与先进自主导航系统的高效可靠的定位，感知和控制算法的设计有关。申请人的目标是建立一个世界一流的自主导航系统研究计划，以开发可靠的全自主无人机。

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.