A collision-resilient aerial vehicle with icosahedron tensegrity structure

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel collision-resilient aerial vehicle featuring an icosahedron tensegrity structure, demonstrating its ability to withstand impacts and autonomously reorient after crashes, enhancing operational safety in obstacle-rich environments.

Contribution

It presents a new design methodology for a collision-resilient aerial vehicle using tensegrity structures and an autonomous reorientation controller, validated through experiments.

Findings

Successfully reorients after upside-down landing

Survives collisions at speeds up to 6.5 m/s

Demonstrates enhanced collision resilience in experiments

Abstract

Aerial vehicles with collision resilience can operate with more confidence in environments with obstacles that are hard to detect and avoid. This paper presents the methodology used to design a collision resilient aerial vehicle with icosahedron tensegrity structure. A simplified stress analysis of the tensegrity frame under impact forces is performed to guide the selection of its components. In addition, an autonomous controller is presented to reorient the vehicle from an arbitrary orientation on the ground to help it take off. Experiments show that the vehicle can successfully reorient itself after landing upside-down and can survive collisions with speed up to 6.5m/s.