Print Email Facebook Twitter Monocular Optical Flow based Attitude Estimation in Micro Aerial Vehicles Title Monocular Optical Flow based Attitude Estimation in Micro Aerial Vehicles: A Bio-Inspired Approach Author Chatterjee, Abhishek (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering) Contributor de Croon, G.C.H.E. (mentor) Olejnik, D.A. (graduation committee) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Programme Aerospace Engineering Date 2019-08-30 Abstract The exceptional flight capabilities of insects have long amazed and inspired researchers and roboticists striving to make Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) smaller and more agile. It is well known that optical flow plays a prominent role in insect flight control and navigation, and hence it is being increasingly investigated for applications in flying robots as well. However, optical flow based strategies for estimation and stabilization of orientation remain obscure in literature. In this report, we introduce a novel state estimation algorithm based on optical flow measurements and the knowledge of efference copies. The proposed technique estimates the following states of a flying robot (constrained to move with three degrees of freedom): roll angle, rate of change of roll angle, horizontal and vertical components of velocity and height. The estimator only utilizes the knowledge of control inputs and optical flow measurements obtained from a downward looking monocular camera. Through non-linear observability analysis, we theoretically prove the feasibility of estimating the attitude of a MAV using ventral flow and divergence measurements. Based on the findings of the observability analysis, an extended Kalman filter state estimator is designed and its performance is verified in simulations and through flight data recorded on a real flying robot. To the best of our knowledge, the introduced strategy is the first attitude estimation technique that utilizes monocular optical flow as the only sensory information.Besides the investigation on optical flow based attitude estimation technique, this thesis presents a comprehensive literature survey on the main topics relevant to the work. Subject Bio-inspirationOptical FlowInsect flightAttitude EstimationMicro Aerial Vehicle To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ce520f94-bd3c-41a5-9ddd-edfdf6ead35e Embargo date 2022-09-01 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2019 Abhishek Chatterjee Files PDF Thesis_Abhishek_4743075_Print.pdf 21.11 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:ce520f94-bd3c-41a5-9ddd-edfdf6ead35e/datastream/OBJ/view