Fast, Autonomous Flight in GPS-Denied and Cluttered Environments

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive system for fast, reliable autonomous drone navigation in GPS-denied, cluttered environments, integrating hardware and software components tested in real-world warehouse scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated system architecture and demonstrates its effectiveness through extensive real-world experiments in complex environments.

Findings

Enables fast autonomous flight without GPS in cluttered spaces

Demonstrates robustness and reliability in warehouse environments

Provides insights on hardware and software integration for drones

Abstract

One of the most challenging tasks for a flying robot is to autonomously navigate between target locations quickly and reliably while avoiding obstacles in its path, and with little to no a-priori knowledge of the operating environment. This challenge is addressed in the present paper. We describe the system design and software architecture of our proposed solution, and showcase how all the distinct components can be integrated to enable smooth robot operation. We provide critical insight on hardware and software component selection and development, and present results from extensive experimental testing in real-world warehouse environments. Experimental testing reveals that our proposed solution can deliver fast and robust aerial robot autonomous navigation in cluttered, GPS-denied environments.