Risk-Aware Decentralized Multi-MAV Planning in Unknown and Dynamic Environments

Recent progress in multiple micro aerial vehicle (MAV) systems has demonstrated autonomous navigation in static environments. Yet, there are limited works regarding the autonomous navigation of multiple MAVs in dynamic and unknown environments. The challenge arises from the complexity of the motion planning problem, which requires the MAVs to...

Improving DRL Of Vision-Based Navigation By Stereo Image Prediction

Although deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is a highly promising approach to learning robotic vision-based control, it is plagued by long training times. This report introduces a DRL setup that relies on self-supervised learning for extracting depth information valuable for navigation. Specifically, a literature study is conducted to investigate...

Detect and Avoid for Autonomous Agents in Cluttered Environments

Autonomous agents are the future of many services and industries such as delivery systems, surveillance and monitoring, and search and rescue missions. An important aspect in an autonomous agent is the navigation system it uses to traverse the environment. Not much emphasis has been paid in the past on autonomous agent navigation in cluttered...

Sensor Fusion in Autonomous Navigation for Asteroid Observation Missions

Spacecraft navigation and control is difficult in deep space operations. Especially around asteroids, the irregular gravity field increases the difficulty of estimating the spacecraft trajectory. Autonomous navigation can increase the safety and accuracy for orbit proximity operations. Furthermore, it eliminates the need for continuous...

Autonomous Navigation around Asteroids using Convolutional Neural Networks

Missions to small bodies are increasingly gaining interest as they might hold the secrets to our solar system’s origin while some are also posing a threat to life on Earth. The small size and irregular shape result in complex dynamics complicating the close-proximity operations. Furthermore, due to the long round-trip time communication delays...

Quantification of the risk reduction potential of autonomous navigation

Autonomous ships have become a topic of interest for an increasing number of researchers over the last few years. Most of the research that is being performed focuses on autonomous navigation. An important driver for this research is the belief that autonomous navigation will increase safety at sea. In order to evaluate the possible safety...

Real-time Vision-based Autonomous Navigation of MAV in Dynamic Environments

Safe navigation in unknown environments is a challenging task for autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) systems. Previous works generally avoid obstacles by assuming that the environment is static. The purpose of this thesis work is to develop a MAV system that can navigate autonomously and safely in dynamic environments. We present an onboard...