Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) Guidance and Navigation

Aurora Flight Sciences and Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute propose a joint program to develop a generalized MAV navigation and guidance framework applicable to both hovering and fixed wing configurations. The proposed cooperative program seeks to apply image processing methods and devices developed at CMU for a wide range of MAV navigation with special emphasis to the indoor and urban canyon like environments. We will investigate the use of panospheric imaging and novel methods of ranging. Panospheric imaging is the projection of a very wide field of view (360 degs in azimuth and up to 120 degs in elevation) onto a single camera via a curved mirror. Such imaging allows tele-operated navigation without the requirement for any moving parts to view different parts of the surrounding environment. In addition to telepresence, this mode will also provide the ability to track moving objects, guide the MAV toward a target, and attitude control through optical flow processing. Complementary to the panospheric imaging, we also propose to investigate a novel laser ranging device based on Self-Mixing Laser Interferometry (SMiLI) that can be used for odometry, attitude control, obstacle detection and mapping. Apart from fulfilling several needs, both technologies are amenable to the miniaturization required for MAVs.