Drones
Vision-aided UAV navigation and dynamic obstacle avoidance using gradient-based B-spline trajectory optimization
Xu, Zhefan, Xiu, Yumeng, Zhan, Xiaoyang, Chen, Baihan, Shimada, Kenji
Navigating dynamic environments requires the robot to generate collision-free trajectories and actively avoid moving obstacles. Most previous works designed path planning algorithms based on one single map representation, such as the geometric, occupancy, or ESDF map. Although they have shown success in static environments, due to the limitation of map representation, those methods cannot reliably handle static and dynamic obstacles simultaneously. To address the problem, this paper proposes a gradient-based B-spline trajectory optimization algorithm utilizing the robot's onboard vision. The depth vision enables the robot to track and represent dynamic objects geometrically based on the voxel map. The proposed optimization first adopts the circle-based guide-point algorithm to approximate the costs and gradients for avoiding static obstacles. Then, with the vision-detected moving objects, our receding-horizon distance field is simultaneously used to prevent dynamic collisions. Finally, the iterative re-guide strategy is applied to generate the collision-free trajectory. The simulation and physical experiments prove that our method can run in real-time to navigate dynamic environments safely.
Iran unveils armed drone resembling America's MQ-9 Reaper, claims it could reach Israel
Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Iran on Tuesday unveiled a new armed drone bearing resemblance to America's MQ-9 Reaper, with state media claiming it has the operational range to reach Israel. The Mohajer-10 was showcased during a ceremony celebrating the Islamic Republic's Defense Industry Day. The drone can fly non-stop for 24 hours with an operational range of around 1,200 miles and is capable of carrying a bomb payload of up to 660 pounds, according to the state-run IRNA News Agency.
Terrifying video shows suspected Mexican drug cartel bombing rural community with drones, aid group says
A Mexican drug cartel is being accused of dropping as many as 33 bombs on the rural community of El Caracol this month. Video out of the small town shows residents looking up into the sky as an explosion can be heard. The drone attacks began Aug. 10, with 30 homemade bombs being dropped, and three more dropped the following day, according to the Minerva Bello Center for Victims of Violence. "We urge authorities at every level to urgently take the necessary actions to stop the aggression against the residents of El Caracol," the group said in a statement. The center further claims that residents say they first began seeing drone activity over the town in May of last year.
Iran unveils attack drone capable of striking Israel
Tehran, Iran โ Iran has unveiled a new drone that it says is capable of striking targets in Israel. The Iranian Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics unveiled the Mohajer-10 on Tuesday as part of an exhibition and ceremonies marking Defence Industry Day. President Ebrahim Raisi and senior commanders in the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attended the event. The unmanned attack aircraft, which resembles the MQ-9 Reaper manufactured by the United States, was also shown in videos taking off from an unidentified airstrip and flying. It is said to be capable of carrying a variety of bombs and anti-radar equipment and of conducting surveillance.
Russian air defences down two drones near Moscow, mayor says
Russian air defence systems have brought down two combat drones west of the Russian capital, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. The drones were downed early on Tuesday over the Moscow region's towns of Krasnogorsk and the settlement of Chastsy, Sobyanin said. One in the Krasnogorsk area, the other in the Chastsy area," he Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that emergency services were responding. The Moscow mayor did not give details on damage or casualties in what is the latest attempted drone raid on the Russian capital. Air traffic at Moscow's Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports was briefly halted, Russia's state news agency TASS reported, quoting an aviation service source as saying. "Glass damage was recorded on several floors" in a multi-storey residential building in Krasnogorsk," the news agency said, without specifying whether it was the result of a drone strike.
Flexible Multi-DoF Aerial 3D Printing Supported with Automated Optimal Chunking
Stamatopoulos, Marios-Nektarios, Banerjee, Avijit, Nikolakopoulos, George
The future of 3D printing utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) presents a promising capability to revolutionize manufacturing and to enable the creation of large-scale structures in remote and hard- to-reach areas e.g. in other planetary systems. Nevertheless, the limited payload capacity of UAVs and the complexity in the 3D printing of large objects pose significant challenges. In this article we propose a novel chunk-based framework for distributed 3D printing using UAVs that sets the basis for a fully collaborative aerial 3D printing of challenging structures. The presented framework, through a novel proposed optimisation process, is able to divide the 3D model to be printed into small, manageable chunks and to assign them to a UAV for partial printing of the assigned chunk, in a fully autonomous approach. Thus, we establish the algorithms for chunk division, allocation, and printing, and we also introduce a novel algorithm that efficiently partitions the mesh into planar chunks, while accounting for the inter-connectivity constraints of the chunks. The efficiency of the proposed framework is demonstrated through multiple physics based simulations in Gazebo, where a CAD construction mesh is printed via multiple UAVs carrying materials whose volume is proportionate to a fraction of the total mesh volume.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 544
The United Nations condemned a Russian missile attack on Ukraine's northern city of Chernihiv on Saturday morning, which killed seven people and injured dozens. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised a "tangible response" from Ukrainian forces to what he called a "heinous strike". The Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in western parts of the Zaporizhia region and made modest advances. Russian forces continued to launch offensive operations around the city of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region but did not make any confirmed advances, it said. Kharkiv region's Governor Oleh Syniehubov posted on his Telegram channel that a man in his 40s was seriously injured this morning after Russian forces shelled Kupiansk.
Collaborative Route Planning of UAVs, Workers and Cars for Crowdsensing in Disaster Response
Han, Lei, Tu, Chunyu, Yu, Zhiwen, Yu, Zhiyong, Shan, Weihua, Wang, Liang, Guo, Bin
Efficiently obtaining the up-to-date information in the disaster-stricken area is the key to successful disaster response. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), workers and cars can collaborate to accomplish sensing tasks, such as data collection, in disaster-stricken areas. In this paper, we explicitly address the route planning for a group of agents, including UAVs, workers, and cars, with the goal of maximizing the task completion rate. We propose MANF-RL-RP, a heterogeneous multi-agent route planning algorithm that incorporates several efficient designs, including global-local dual information processing and a tailored model structure for heterogeneous multi-agent systems. Global-local dual information processing encompasses the extraction and dissemination of spatial features from global information, as well as the partitioning and filtering of local information from individual agents. Regarding the construction of the model structure for heterogeneous multi-agent, we perform the following work. We design the same data structure to represent the states of different agents, prove the Markovian property of the decision-making process of agents to simplify the model structure, and also design a reasonable reward function to train the model. Finally, we conducted detailed experiments based on the rich simulation data. In comparison to the baseline algorithms, namely Greedy-SC-RP and MANF-DNN-RP, MANF-RL-RP has exhibited a significant improvement in terms of task completion rate.