Grant: Alliance Grants

Autonomous drones, especially multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (MRUAVs) are among the most anticipated technological innovation in several areas such as search and rescue, inspection, and cargo delivery. Despite recent technological advances, the use of autonomous MRUAVs continues to remain minimal. One reason is that the safety of MRUAVs' autonomous operation is difficult to guarantee, especially in the landing phase. There are several challenges regarding autonomous landing, including identification of a safe-to-land zone, determining the landing surface inclination and its surrounding obstacles, and dealing with the aerodynamic effects of close-to-terrain flight. As such, there is currently a lack of autonomous landing algorithms that can land MRUAVs accurately and with high repeatability. The objective of this project is to research two key areas of perception and navigation algorithms that can potentially improve the accuracy and repeatability of autonomous landing. With regards to navigation, we will develop navigation algorithms that will use advanced aerodynamic models of MRUAVs to develop model-based motion planning and control algorithms. As for perception, we will explore the use of computer vision and artificial intelligence to increase the capabilities of MRUAVs to perceive the environment, leading to improved situational awareness. By integrating the perception and navigation algorithms, we will develop holistic autonomous landing algorithms whose effectiveness will be evaluated through extensive real-world flight experiments. This project is in collaboration with one of the internationally recognized research groups in the perception and control of MRUAVs, New York University, and will foster long-term collaborations and new industry-academia partnerships. The outcomes of this research will help Canada to maintain its leading role in the MRUAVs market and has the potential to innovate in many Canadian industry sectors including search delivery services, agriculture, marine and fishing, oil, and sovereignty.