Scope: Flying opens new opportunities to robotically perform field services and tasks like search and rescue, observation and mapping. As such, substantial interest in aerial robots has grown in recent years compelling a need for a technical committee. Key areas to be addressed include autonomous missions, localization and multi-vehicle coordination.

Objective: The technical committee will promote exchanges among researchers from academia, industry and government. The purpose is to identify the technologies and technical approaches to advance and mature the field of aerial robotics. Exchanges include workshops, special sessions in conferences and publications to promote discussion on technical and applicative problems. Envisioned will be on-line and printed resources to disseminate knowledge including cross-disciplinary information like aerodynamics, propulsion, communications, controls and sensors.

Topics of Interest: Include but not limited to:

Membership: If you are interested in becoming a member of this committee, please send to the Chairman, K. Valavanis by email - your name, title, affiliation, and telephone & fax numbers, email address, and your area of interest.

Chairs:

09/22/08 IEEE IROS 2008 Workshop "Visual guidance systems for small autonomous aerial vehicles", Nice, France. The objective of the workshop is to bring together researchers from fields such as robotics or control engineering to discuss about novel sensors, avionics and autopilots that will be embedded onboard future miniature aerial robots. Web Page

05/19/08 IEEE ICRA 2008 Workshop "UAVs: Civilian and Commercial Opportunities", Pasadena, CA. This full day workshop brings panelists from agencies and industry to identify opportunities, challenges and roadmaps for UAVs. Web Page

Call for Papers: UAV 2008 International Symposium on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles June 23-24, 2008 Orlando, Florida. (Web Page). First deadline 03/15/08: 2000-word extended summary

11/02/07 IEEE IROS Workshop "Micro Aerial Vehicles: Design, Control and Navigation" (Web Page). Organized by Samir Bouabdallah and Roland Siegwart.

10/09/07 SAE Aerospace Control and Guidance Systems Committee Workshop (Web Page)

Archive:

07/31/05: Call for Papers (PDF) - Special Issue of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine
"Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Enabling Technologies and Roadmap for Autonomy"
Guest Editors: K.P. Valavanis (USF) and G.J. Vachtsevanos (Georgia Tech)

05/02/05: 2005 Indoor Aerial Robot Competition - Sponsored by the Drexel Autonomous Systems Lab, ASME and IEEE. The event's goal is realize functioning aerial robots that fly autonomously in near-Earth environments by 2015. To help achieve this, an annual competition has been planned with a growing levels of complexity and autonomy.
Concept and highlights of 2005 Competition video Regular (10 MB) | Lower Res (3 MB)
Website Folder

04/27/2004: "Micro-Air-Vehicles: The Next 10 Years" 2004 IEEE ICRA Workshop, New Orleans, LA, USA
Real audio of presentations available on-line.

05/07/2006: 2006 Indoor Aerial Robot Competition Rules and Overview
Concept and Highlights Video WMV (44 MB)