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Ferede, R. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), Izzo, Dario (author)Developing optimal controllers for aggressive high-speed quadcopter flight poses significant challenges in robotics. Recent trends in the field involve utilizing neural network controllers trained through supervised or reinforcement learning. However, the sim-to-real transfer introduces a reality gap, requiring the use of robust inner loop...journal article 2024
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Meester, R.S. (author), van Dijk, Tom (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Obstacle avoidance is an important capability for flying robots. But for robots with limited resources, such as small drones this becomes particularly challenging. Bug algorithms have been proposed to solve path planning with only minimal resources. And stereo vision provides a rich description of the world for limited weight but typically has a...conference paper 2023
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Pfeiffer, S.U. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Moving Horizon Estimation (MHE) offers multiple advantages over Kalman Filters when it comes to the localization of drones. However, due to the high computational cost, they can not be used on Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) with limited computational power. We have previously shown, that with a few assumptions and simplifications, MHE can be made...conference paper 2023
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Stroobants, S. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Neuromorphic processing promises high energy efficiency and rapid response rates, making it an ideal candidate for achieving autonomous flight of resource-constrained robots. It can be especially beneficial for complex neural networks as are used for high-level visual perception. However, fully neuromorphic solutions also need to tackle low...conference paper 2023
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Yu, H.Y. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author), de Wagter, C. (author)Obstacle avoidance is an essential topic in the field of autonomous drone research. When choosing an avoidance algorithm, many different options are available, each with their advantages and disadvantages. As there is currently no consensus on testing methods, it is quite challenging to compare the performance between algorithms. In this...conference paper 2023
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de Wagter, C. (author)Highly automated Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or "flying robots" are rapidly becoming an important asset to society. The last decade has seen the advent of an impressive number of new UAV types and applications. For many applications, the UAVs need to be safe, highly automated, and versatile. Safety is a prerequisite to allowing their use in...doctoral thesis 2022
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Olejnik, D.A. (author), Muijres, Florian T. (author), Karasek, M. (author), Honfi Camilo, Leonardo (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Natural fliers utilize passive and active flight control strategies to cope with windy conditions. This capability makes them incredibly agile and resistant to wind gusts. Here, we study how insects achieve this, by combining Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses of flying fruit flies with freely-flying robotic experiments. The CFD...journal article 2022
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Li, S. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Wireless ranging measurements have been proposed for enabling multiple Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) to localize with respect to each other. However, the high-dimensional relative states are weakly observable due to the scalar distance measurement. Hence, the MAVs have degraded relative localization and control performance under unobservable...journal article 2022
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Karssies, H. J. (author), de Wagter, C. (author)Hybrid UAVs have gained a lot of interest for their combined vertical take-off & landing (VTOL) and efficient forward flight capabilities. But their control is facing challenges in over-actuation and conflicting requirements depending on the flight phase which can easily lead to actuator saturation. Incremental Non-linear Control...journal article 2022
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Li, S. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Relative localization is an important ability for multiple robots to perform cooperative tasks in GPS-denied environments. This paper presents a novel autonomous positioning framework for monocular relative localization of multiple tiny flying robots. This approach does not require any groundtruth data from external systems or manual labeling....conference paper 2022
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Olejnik, D.A. (author), Wang, S. (author), Dupeyroux, J.J.G. (author), Stroobants, S. (author), Karasek, M. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)This paper discusses a low-cost, open-source and open-hardware design and performance evaluation of a low-speed, multi-fan wind system dedicated to micro air vehicle (MAV) testing. In addition, a set of experiments with a flapping wing MAV and rotorcraft is presented, demonstrating the capabilities of the system and the properties of these...conference paper 2022
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Bahnam, S.A. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)ROVIO is one of the state-of-the-art mono visual inertial odometry algorithms. It uses an Iterative Extended Kalman Filter (IEKF) to align features and update the vehicle state simultaneously by including the feature locations in the state vector of the IEKF. This algorithm is single core intensive, which allows using the other cores for other...conference paper 2022
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- de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author), de Wagter, C. (author) conference paper 2022
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Westenberger, Jelle (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Time-optimal model predictive control is important for achieving fast racing drones but is computationally intensive and thereby rarely used onboard small quadcopters with limited computational resources. In this work, we simplify the optimal control problem (OCP) of the position loop for several maneuvers by exploiting the fact that the...journal article 2022
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Wang, S. (author), Olejnik, D.A. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), van Oudheusden, B.W. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author), Hamaza, S. (author)Flyers in nature equip different airflow sensing mechanisms to navigate through wind disturbances with remarkable flight stability. Embracing bio-inspiration, airflow sensing with conventional sensors has long been utilized in flight control for larger micro air vehicles (MAVs). Bio-inspired flapping wing MAVs (FWMAVs) have extremely limited...journal article 2022
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de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author), Dupeyroux, J.J.G. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), Chatterjee, A. (author), Olejnik, D.A. (author), Ruffier, Franck (author)Attitude control is an essential flight capability. Whereas flying robots commonly rely on accelerometers<sup>1</sup> for estimating attitude, flying insects lack an unambiguous sense of gravity<sup>2,3</sup>. Despite the established role of several sense organs in attitude stabilization<sup>3–5</sup>, the dependence of flying insects on an...journal article 2022
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Karssies, H.J. (author), de Wagter, C. (author)Controlling over-actuated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is an important task to achieve reliable fail-safe autonomous flight. Incremental Non-linear Control Allocation or INCA has been proposed to solve the platform’s control allocation problem by minimizing a set of objective functions with a method known as the Active Set Method. This work...conference paper 2021
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Westenberger, J.M. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Time-optimal model predictive control is important for achieving fast racing drones but is computationally intensive and thereby rarely used onboard small quadcopters with limited computational resources. In this work, we simplify the optimal control problem (OCP) of the position loop for several maneuvers by exploiting the fact that the...conference paper 2021
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Li, S. (author), de Wagter, C. (author), de Croon, G.C.H.E. (author)Wireless ranging measurements have been proposed for enabling multiple Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) to localize with respect to each other. However, the high-dimensional relative states are weakly observable due to the scalar distance measurement. Hence, the MAVs have degraded relative localization and control performance under unobservable...conference paper 2021
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Dellemann, L.F.A. (author), de Wagter, C. (author)The increased search for the performance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has led to an interest in hybrid concepts like the tail-sitter UAV. A tail-sitter UAV is capable of combining vertical take-offs and landings (VTOL) with efficient long-endurance forward flights. During hover, the wings do not provide lift but instead act as disturbance...conference paper 2021