Flying Robot Category

In the 2008 edition of the Flying Robot Category of the EPFL SmartRob Contest, groups of students will have to develop a completely autonomous fixed-wing platform for outdoor operation. The SmartRob Contest will be seen as a prequalification for an international competition (e.g. EMAV'08)

The competitions emphasize simple, reactive solutions with minimal hardware to meet the specific challenges imposed on weight and computing power particular to aerial robotics.

The program is open to student teams from all Swiss universities and technical schools. Prior experience in aerial robotics is not a prerequisite but some knowledge in aeronautics, control, sensors and programming may be useful.

2008 - Students rank 2nd in an international flight competition

In the 2008 edition of the Smartrob flying robots category, participants aligned their development efforts with the rules of the European Micro Air Vehicle Flight Competition (EMAV'08, Braunschweig, Germany, 08-10.07.2008). Here are the rules of EMAV'08.

Flying robots for this outdoor competition collect their total scores based on 3 factors:

1. Size (the smaller the better, 80cm is the maximum wingspan)
2. Level of Autonomy (must be as autonomous as possible)
3. Mission scores (the better the mission goals are fulfilled, the higher the score)

The students were provided with a flying platform consisting of a flying wing model kit, construction materials, a basic flight controller board (stabilization, altitude, speed and turn control realized with a dsPic33 microcontroller). An optional Linux-based processor board could be used for higher-level (e.g. video processing, navigation) control purposes. In addition, the student team had a budget to equip its robot with actuators and sensors.

The POLISTAR team, composed of 5 EPFL students, participated in the EMAV'08 flight competition and won the 2nd place in the "Outdoor Autonomy" discipline. In this discipline, the mission was to fly with a micro air vehicle (MAV) through a series of waypoints, detect a target on the ground with an onboard camera, drop a paint-ball in front of the spectators, and perform a precision landing within a square of 20x20m size. Next to the mission points, size and autonomy of the MAV platform mattered. The students build a custom flying-wing platform and flight controller system that successfully achieved all required tasks. Full autonomy during the entire competition flight and a wingspan of only 72cm finally won the team 2nd place.

Watch the videos of our participation at EMAV'08: video 1 and video 2

The POLISTAR team

The team consists of four microengineering (MT) and computer sciences (IN) students from EPFL:

• Adrien Briod - MT
• Laurent Coutard - MT
• Alexandre Habersaat - IN
• David Portabella - IN

The POLISTAR team was supervised by Severin Leven, who is a PhD student at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems.

The team has decided the following distribution of tasks:

Alexandre:

• Software for the base station for visualization and control of plane parameters
• Communication of dsPic33 microcontroller with base station
• Experience as a pilot

David:

• Video camera interface
• Image processing for arches detection

Laurent:

• Distance-sensors (characterization, selection, PCB design for integration if needed)
• Programming the dsPic33 microcontroller for near-to-ground flight

Adrien:

• Waypoint navigation algorithms
• Programming the dsPic33 microcontroller for navigation and flight missions
• Team communications and coordination