A saying from one of my favorite movies is, “Tie two birds together and even though they have four wings they cannot fly.” Can’t say the same about flying drones.
“We perform outdoor autonomous flying experiment of f-LASDRA, constructed with multiple ODAR-8 links connected via cable with each other. Each ODAR-8 can compensate for its own weight, rendering f-LASDRA scalable. Utilizing SCKF with IMU/GNSS-module on each link and inter-link kinematic-constraints, we attain estimation accuracy suitable for stable control (5cm: cf. 1-5m w/ GNSS).”
We perform outdoor autonomous flying experiment of f-LASDRA (flying Large-size Aerial Skeleton with Distributed Rotor Actuation), which is constructed with multiple ODAR-8 links (https://youtu.be/S3i9NspWtr0), connected via flexible cable with each other. Each ODAR-8 link can generate omni-directional force/torque and also compensate for its own weight, thereby, rendering the f-LASDRA scalable w.r.the number of links.
Utilizing SCKF with standard IMU/GNSS-module on each link and inter-link kinematic-constraints, we can significantly improve position/attitude estimation accuracy of the f-LASDRA necessary for stable control (less than 5cm) as compared to typical accuracy of GNSS (1-5m). Semi-distributed version of the estimation framework is also devised to address the issue of scalability. (Accepted ICRA 2019). See also https://youtu.be/oHkjB8XzxIg for operational-LASDRA).