讲座内容:

Over last decade, aerial robotics have received unprecedented research interests and created extensive new applications. Currently dominant aerial robot platforms, multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), though highly maneuverable (i.e. vertical takeoff and landing, hovering capability), is inherently energy inefficient by its flight mechanics. This drawback has increasingly limited their application in range and endurance demanding tasks such as surveying and mapping. In contrast, hybrid aerial vehicles such as tail-sitters, tilt rotors, tilt wings, or dual-propulsion systems can transform between hover mode and efficient level flight mode, and dramatically extend the mission range. Although actively explored throughout the history of aviation, low cost, small scale hybrid UAVs with increased intelligence and autonomy still pose grand challenges. In this talk, I will present the development of a portable hybrid vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAV. From a system point of view, three topics will be covered: design, modeling and control. Through the design, implementation and intensive tests, I will show how recent advances in low cost actuator (e.g. motor, propeller, ESCs), computation units and sensors have enabled the development of such small scale hybrid VTOL UAVs and the potentials as well as challenges confronted with them.