Cooperative autonomous helicopters for load transportation and environment perception

Abstract

This paper summarizes research of the authors on cooperation of autonomous helicopters. Particularly, the paper presents results of the joint load transportation by means of multiple autonomous helicopters that was experimentally demonstrated for the first time. Furthermore, the paper presents the developed cooperative perception system and its experimental validation by tracking of a fireman. The paper also includes the description of decision making and mission planning architecture for execution of complex tasks and its validation in experiment with sensor node deployment by using two autonomous helicopters. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.