Targeted Autonomous Indoor Flight of a Rotary-Wing MAV

The paper is focused on flight missions of Autonomous Rotary-WingMicro Aerial Vehicles (RWMAVs) in indoor GPS-denied environments and the development of algorithms for such missions. In such tasks, GPS may be unavailable and the map of the environment is a priory unknown. This paper presents a modular system consisted of the required components for flying RW MAVs in indoor environments. These components include methods for position estimation of the MAV, for planning a flight path toward a target location while taking into account detected obstacles and maneuverability limitations of the vehicle, and for calculating flight commands to fly along the planed path. The methodology is based on using a lightweight laser range finder as a sole onboard sensor. Moreover, only one of the system components requires knowledge about the dynamic model of the MAV. Our simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the approach and of the system modules.