Design and control of a collision-resilient aerial vehicle with an icosahedron tensegrity structure

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel collision-resilient aerial vehicle design using icosahedron tensegrity structures, featuring a model-based component selection and an autonomous re-orientation controller for operation in cluttered environments.

Contribution

It introduces a new tensegrity-based aerial vehicle with collision resilience and autonomous re-orientation capabilities, validated through real-world forest environment testing.

Findings

Successfully survived high-speed impacts

Enabled autonomous re-orientation from arbitrary ground orientations

Operated effectively in cluttered forest environments

Abstract

We introduce collision-resilient aerial vehicles with icosahedron tensegrity structures, capable of surviving high-speed impacts and resuming operations post-collision. We present a model-based design approach, which guides the selection of the tensegrity components by predicting structural stresses through a dynamics simulation. Furthermore, we develop an autonomous re-orientation controller that facilitates post-collision flight resumption. The controller enables the vehicles to rotate from an arbitrary orientation on the ground for takeoff. With collision resilience and re-orientation ability, the tensegrity aerial vehicles can operate in cluttered environments without complex collision-avoidance strategies. These capabilities are validated by a test of an experimental vehicle operating autonomously in a previously-unknown forest environment.