Autonomous indoor helicopter flight using a single onboard camera

Abstract

We consider the problem of autonomously flying a helicopter in indoor environments. Navigation in indoor settings poses two major challenges. First, real-time perception and response is crucial because of the high presence of obstacles. Second, the limited free space in such a setting places severe restrictions on the size of the aerial vehicle, resulting in a frugal payload budget. We autonomously fly a miniature RC helicopter in small known environments using an on-board light-weight camera as the only sensor. We use an algorithm that combines data-driven image classification with optical flow techniques on the images captured by the camera to achieve real-time 3D localization and navigation. We perform successful autonomous test flights along trajectories in two different indoor settings. Our results demonstrate that our method is capable of autonomous flight even in narrow indoor spaces with sharp corners.