creators_name: De nardi, Renzo
creators_name: Holland, Owen
editors_name: Sahin, Erol
editors_name: Spears, William M.
editors_name: Winfield, Alan F. T.
type: confpaper
datestamp: 2007-05-28
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:56:51
metadata_visibility: show
title: UltraSwarm: A Further Step Towards a Flock of Miniature Helicopters

ispublished: pub
subjects: comp-sci-robot
full_text_status: public
keywords: Miniature helicopter, Swarm intelligence, Neural Network, Evolution
abstract: We describe further progress towards the development of a
MAV (micro aerial vehicle) designed as an enabling tool to investigate aerial flocking. Our research focuses on the use of low cost off the shelf vehicles and sensors to enable fast prototyping and to reduce development costs. Details on the design of the embedded electronics and the
modification of the chosen toy helicopter are presented, and the technique used for state estimation is described. The fusion of inertial data through an unscented Kalman filter is used to estimate the helicopter’s state, and this forms the main input to the control system. Since no detailed dynamic model of the helicopter in use is available, a method is proposed for automated system identification, and for subsequent controller design based on artificial evolution. Preliminary results obtained with a dynamic simulator of a helicopter are reported, along with some encouraging results for tackling the problem of flocking.
date: 2006
date_type: published
volume: Swarm 
number: LNCS 4
publisher: Springer
pagerange: 116-128
refereed: TRUE
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citation:   De nardi, Renzo and Holland, Owen  (2006) UltraSwarm: A Further Step Towards a Flock of Miniature Helicopters.  [Conference Paper]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/5571/1/DeNardi2006UltraswarmFurther.pdf