BEAVIS: Balloon Enabled Aerial Vehicle for IoT and Sensing

TL;DR

BEAVIS is a novel aerial robotic platform that combines drone maneuverability with blimp-like endurance, utilizing a nonlinear flight controller and aerodynamic phenomena to achieve extended flight time and fault tolerance.

Contribution

The paper introduces BEAVIS, a new UAV design that balances agility and long-lasting capacity, with a novel flight controller exploiting aerodynamic effects for enhanced performance.

Findings

BEAVIS achieves 11.36x longer flight time than traditional drones.

The nonlinear flight controller effectively manages all degrees of freedom.

BEAVIS demonstrates superior agility and fault tolerance.

Abstract

UAVs are becoming versatile and valuable platforms for various applications. However, the main limitation is their flying time. We present BEAVIS, a novel aerial robotic platform striking an unparalleled trade-off between the manoeuvrability of drones and the long lasting capacity of blimps. BEAVIS scores highly in applications where drones enjoy unconstrained mobility yet suffer from limited lifetime. A nonlinear flight controller exploiting novel, unexplored, aerodynamic phenomena to regulate the ambient pressure and enable all translational and yaw degrees of freedom is proposed without direct actuation in the vertical direction. BEAVIS has built-in rotor fault detection and tolerance. We explain the design and the necessary background in detail. We verify the dynamics of BEAVIS and demonstrate its distinct advantages, such as agility, over existing platforms including the degrees of freedom akin to a drone with 11.36x increased lifetime. We exemplify the potential of BEAVIS to become an invaluable platform for many applications.