Robohub.org
 

Aggressive flight using laser scanner, IMU, & 3D map


by
30 May 2012



share this:

Evan Ackerman, writing for IEEE Spectrum’s Automaton blog, says

Researchers at MIT CSAIL have decided that slow and obstacle-free flight is boring, so they’ve come up with a way to get MAVs navigating at high speed, indoors, around obstacles, without needing motion tracking or GPS or beacons or any of that nonsense. All they need is a little aircraft that can carry a planar laser rangefinder, an IMU, and a pre-existing 3D occupancy map that the MAV can localize itself in.

This research has been conducted by the Robust Robotics Group (RRG), led by Nicholas Roy. A paper explaining it in detail was presented at ICRA by graduate student Adam Bry. A similar video using a quadrotor (below) appears on the personal page of RRG Research Scientist Stefanie Tellex, which is worth a visit for the cat video she’s also posted! (IMU = Inertial Measurement Unit)

A Voice-Commandable Robotic Helicopter…



tags: , , , ,


John Payne





Related posts :



CoRL2025 – RobustDexGrasp: dexterous robot hand grasping of nearly any object

  11 Nov 2025
A new reinforcement learning framework enables dexterous robot hands to grasp diverse objects with human-like robustness and adaptability—using only a single camera.

Robot Talk Episode 132 – Collaborating with industrial robots, with Anthony Jules

  07 Nov 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Anthony Jules from Robust.AI about their autonomous warehouse robots that work alongside humans.

Teaching robots to map large environments

  05 Nov 2025
A new approach could help a search-and-rescue robot navigate an unpredictable environment by rapidly generating an accurate map of its surroundings.

Robot Talk Episode 131 – Empowering game-changing robotics research, with Edith-Clare Hall

  31 Oct 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Edith-Clare Hall from the Advanced Research and Invention Agency about accelerating scientific and technological breakthroughs.

A flexible lens controlled by light-activated artificial muscles promises to let soft machines see

  30 Oct 2025
Researchers have designed an adaptive lens made of soft, light-responsive, tissue-like materials.

Social media round-up from #IROS2025

  27 Oct 2025
Take a look at what participants got up to at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

Using generative AI to diversify virtual training grounds for robots

  24 Oct 2025
New tool from MIT CSAIL creates realistic virtual kitchens and living rooms where simulated robots can interact with models of real-world objects, scaling up training data for robot foundation models.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence