Tensile web construction and perching with nano aerial vehicles

Abstract

Autonomous construction with aerial vehicles has great potential for in-situ repair and construction in hard-to-access areas. In this paper, we present and demonstrate a mechanism by which a team of autonomous nano aerial vehicles construct a multi-element tensile structure between anchor points in an irregular environment, such as a natural woodland. Furthermore, we demonstrate potential applications of such a structure to enable long-term position holding of aerial vehicles that are otherwise extremely limited in terms of available flight time due to energy constraints. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this mechanism, we develop the mechanical and electronic designs of two payload packages for attachment to nano quadrotor robots with a total integrated mass of only 26 g per robot, and we present the trajectory planning and control algorithms required to enable robust execution of the construction scheme.