We give an overview of the EPFL indoor flying project, whose goal is to evolve neural controllers for autonomous, adaptive, indoor micro-flyers. Indoor flight is still a challenge because it requires miniaturization, energy efficiency, and control of nonlinear flight dynamics. This ongoing project consists of developing a flying, vision-based micro-robot, a bio-inspired controller composed of a...

This paper outlines the design of an autonomous flying vehicle (AFV) for use in researching formation flying. Specifically, we have designed a small autonomous model helicopter as a reference vehicle. Once several more units have been constructed, these vehicles will form a test bed for formation experiments. In this paper various design decisions are presented as well as results from early tes...

Recently there has been increasing research on the development of autonomous flying vehicles. Whereas most of the proposed approaches are suitable for outdoor operation, only a few techniques have been designed for indoor environments. In this paper we present a navigation system for an indoor quadrotor. Our system adapt techniques which have been successfully applied on ground robots to our fl...

Robots are becoming increasingly prevalent and are already providing assistance in a variety of activities, ranging from space exploration to domestic housework. Recent advances in the design of sensors, motors, and microelectromechanical systems have enabled the development of a new class of small aerial robots. These free-flying robots hold great promise in assisting humans by acting as mobil...

Performing aerial 6-dimensional manipulation using flying robots is a challenging problem, to which only little work has been devoted. This paper proposes a motion planning approach for the reliable 6-dimensional quasi-static manipulation with an aerial towed-cable system. The novelty of this approach lies in the use of a cost-based motion-planning algorithm together with some results deriving ...

Flapping wings enable flying animals and biomimetic robots to generate elevated aerodynamic forces. Measurements that demonstrate this capability are based on experiments with tethered robots and animals, and indirect force calculations based on measured kinematics or airflow during free flight. Remarkably, there exists no method to measure these forces directly during free flight. Such in vivo...

Seven flying robot “fairies” joined human actors in the Texas A&M production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The production was a collaboration between the departments of Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Theater Arts. The collaboration was motivated by two assertions. First, that the performing arts have principles for creating belie...

Robots with legs and arms have the potential to support humans in dangerous, dull or dirty tasks. A major motivation behind research on such robots is their potential versatility. However, these robots come at a high price in mechanical and control complexity. Hence, until they can demonstrate a clear advantage over their simpler counterparts, robots with arms and legs will not fulfill their tr...