Development of an Autonomous Multi-Rotor UAV for Outdoor Missions in Unknown Environments

In this paper we present the development of a multi-rotor system for autonomous outdoor flights in an unknown environment. We propose a modular framework scheme to perform the functions of guidance, navigation and control using the sensor measurements. The localization and mapping tasks are performed simultaneously by the guidance module through an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The estimated map allows the guidance module to plan the reference trajectory avoiding the collision by evaluating the solutions of a sequence of constrained optimization problems. The control module computes the autopilot commands to follow the reference trajectory through a robust Model Predictive Control technique. The overall system is tested through simulations of realist scenarios.