Aerial Field Robotics

Aerial field robotics research represents the domain of study that aims to equip unmanned aerial vehicles--and as it pertains to this chapter, specifically Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs)--with the ability to operate in real-life environments that present challenges to safe navigation. We present the key elements of autonomy for MAVs that are resilient to collisions and sensing degradation, while operating under constrained computational resources. We overview aspects of the state of the art, outline bottlenecks to resilient navigation autonomy, and overview the field-readiness of MAVs. We conclude with notable contributions and discuss considerations for future research that are essential for resilience in aerial robotics. The state of the art in aerial robotics can accomplish impressive tasks. Yet wider use and adoption of MAVs for effective field deployment is limited by the resilience of the components of autonomy. In this chapter, we view each element of the autonomy system under the framework of resilience and examine the latest developments, as well as open questions. Towards a principled understanding of progress in resilient and field-hardened aerial robotic autonomy, we define resilience motivated by analogous studies in the domain of risk analysis (Howell 2013).