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:
| - Airframe design | - Field service | |
| - Sensor suites | - Human-computer interfaces | |
| - Autonomous tasks | - Localization | |
| - Propulsion and Engines | - Aerial vehicle teams |
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:
| Kimon Valavanis, University of South Florida | Robert Wood, Harvard University | Samir Bouabdallah, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich | |
| Computer Science and Engineering Dept | Autonomous Systems Lab | ||
| 4202 E. Fowler Avenue | Maxwell Dworkin 149 | Tannenstr. 3 | |
| Tampa, FL 66320-5399 | Cambridge, MA 02138 | 8092-Zürich, Switzerland | |
| Tel: 813-974-6564 | Tel: 617-496-1341 | Tel: +41 44 632 89 06 | |
| kvalavan@csee.usf.edu | rjwood@eecs.harvard.edu | samir.bouabdallah@mavt.ethz.ch |
News:
03/11/09 SenseFly and Skybotix, two young Swiss start-ups targeting the small UAS market. SensFly is a spin-off of the LIS lab of EPF Lausanne, while Skybotix is a spin-off of the ASL lab of ETH Zürich.
10/28/08 2nd International Symposium on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles will take place in Reno, Nevada, in June 8-10, 2009. the main objective of UAV'09 is to bring together different groups of qualified representatives from academia, industry, the private sector, government agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Armed Forces, funding agencies, state and local authorities to discuss the current state of UAS advances, the anticipated roadmap to their full utilization in military and civilian domains, but also present current obstacles, barriers, bottlenecks and limitations to flying autonomously in civilian space. Of paramount importance is to define needed steps to integrate UAS into the National Airspace System (NAS). Conference website
10/27/08 Special Issue on Aerial Robotics of Control Engineering Practice Journal Control Engineering Practice invites submissions for a special issue on Aerial Robotics. The special issue is devoted to recent results in this area, especially those that identify pertinent practical and theoretical open problems in this field, as well as efficient implementations in practical applications. Call For Papers
17/06/08 UK MoD Grand Challenge The Team Stellar won the
UK MoD Grand Challenge 2008.
The team used a system of one UAV, one MAV and a UGV operating in cooperation.
Events:
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
06/22/08 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 2007 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)
05/15/2006: "UAVs: Payloads and Missions" 2006 IEEE ICRA Workshop, Orlando, FL, USA
MP3 Audio of presentations available on-line.