A Single Motor Nano Aerial Vehicle with Novel Peer-to-Peer Communication and Sensing Mechanism

TL;DR

This paper introduces MP3, a compact single-motor drone that uses infrared communication and triangulation for sensing, enabling swarm interaction with minimal hardware, small size, and safe human interaction.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel minimalist drone design capable of peer-to-peer communication and sensing using simple components, reducing complexity and size.

Findings

Successfully localized and navigated in environment

Demonstrated stable flight and maneuverability

Enabled peer-to-peer communication with minimal hardware

Abstract

Communication and position sensing are among the most important capabilities for swarm robots to interact with their peers and perform tasks collaboratively. However, the hardware required to facilitate communication and position sensing is often too complicated, expensive, and bulky to be carried on swarm robots. Here we present Maneuverable Piccolissimo 3 (MP3), a minimalist, single motor drone capable of executing inter-robot communication via infrared light and triangulation-based sensing of relative bearing, distance, and elevation using message arrival time. Thanks to its novel design, MP3 can communicate with peers and localize itself using simple components, keeping its size and mass small and making it inherently safe for human interaction. We present the hardware and software design of MP3 and demonstrate its capability to localize itself, fly stably, and maneuver in the environment using peer-to-peer communication and sensing.