PI: Koushil Sreenath, Mechanical Engineering
There is a pressing need for safe and reliable aerial load transportation. In dense urban places, there exists a rapidly-increasing energy and time costs of transportation packages through jampacked road networks. Aerial load transportation using micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) provide an effective and alternative option. However, dense urban environments are complex and cluttered. While birds are incredibly maneuverable and are capable of flying at high-speed through extremely complex and cluttered environments, MAVs are not. The overarching goal of this project is to realize high-speed aerial transportation through complex, cluttered and dynamic environments. In particular, by building on our prior work, we propose to use theoretical geometric controllers with formal notions of strict safety to fly through cluttered environments.