Work Plan

The work plan articulates in 8 work-packages of which 1 focuses on project management (WP1), 5 on research and development activities (WP2 up to WP6), 1 on demonstration (WP7) and 1 on dissemination and promotion of exploitation (WP8). A graphical sketch of the WP interdependencies is presented below while a brief description of the RTD WPs is presented right after.

WP2 (Requirements, RTD): Activities in this WP are focused on precisely characterizing the potential fields of application of Aerial Service Robots in terms of requirements and expected performances. Particular emphasis will be given to precisely characterize the selected end-user applicative scenario.

WP3 (Aeromechanical design and construction, RTD). All the activities concerning the selection of the best airframe configurations and the design and construction of aerial prototypes are carried out in this WP. The emphasis is given to identify airframe solutions which are suitable to safely interact with the environment and which can be easily adapted to cover a wide array of applications.

WP4 (Modelling, Control and Simulation, RTD): The objective of this WP is twofold. On one side it aims to develop the “low level” control strategies able to explicitly deal with active aerial interaction with the environment and safe vision-based navigation. On the other side the activities will aim to set up an advanced open source simulator for hardware-in-the-loop tests and operator training.

WP5 (Development of advanced cognitive and teleoperation controls, RTD): The objectives of this WP mainly concern the development of a control architecture able to provide a perceptible autonomous capability to the aerial vehicle during navigation, target approaching and interaction phases of a high-level assigned task. Teleoperation and human-in-the-loop issues will be handled in this WP.

WP6 (Integration of technologies, implementation and flight tests, RTD): this WP aims to integrate all the needed technologies and to implement the advanced navigation techniques developed in the AIRobots project.