Towards Open-Source, Printable Pico-Quadrotors

The past decade has seen an increased interest in Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). Rotary wing MAVs such as quadrotors, can operate in confined spaces, hover at any given point in space and perch or land on a flat surface. This makes the quadrotor a very attractive aerial platform with tremendous potential. Our main goal was to design and prototype an MAV that weighs less than 30g and is capable of fully autonomous flight. In this study, we investigate the added benefits of scaling down, such as a significant increase in agility of the robots and their ability to operate in tight formations for flying in confined spaces. Building on our previous work of implementing various methods of rapid-prototyping to design and manufacture small quadrotors[1], we took a monolithic design approach for the Pico-Quadrotor, and the multi-purpose use of as many components as possible. The resulting quadrotor weighs 25g with battery, can carry a payload of about 10g, is capable of autonomous wireless recharging and capable of reaching top speeds of 6 m/s in a 2 m × 2 m × 3 m flight space. These Pico-Quadrotors span a little over 4 inches in diameter and have been flown in a four robot delta formation at speeds of about 3m/s.