MARVIN Technische Universität Berlin ’ s Never - Depressed Flying Robot for the IARC ’ 98

MARVIN is an autonomously flying robot based on a model helicopter. It is designed for search and reconnaissance operations in an unknown environment with possible treats such as fires, water fountains, and smoke. The overall system consists of the helicopter with a microcontroller based on-board computer and a ground station computer. While flight control is done on-board, mission planning, human user interaction, and video image processing take place on ground. Sensors on board the helicopter include carrier phase DGPS, acceleration, compass, and gyro sensors, ultrasonic and infrared surface and threat detection, and a color CCD camera. MARVIN uses a hierarchy of fuzzy controllers for flight control. Flight path planning and collision avoidance are realized using a potential field approach with a dynamic object map.