Over the last decades, small-size multi-copter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have received intensive research interests. These UAVs have shown promising potential for various applications, including aerial photography, farming, delivery, mapping, and surveying. However, for these applications to be successful, autonomous flights in unknown environments are necessary. In this talk, we will discuss our work on developing autonomous UAVs using lidar navigation. Specifically, we will explore recent advancements in lidar technologies and focus on navigation algorithms, including localization, mapping, planning, and control. We will showcase how lidar sensors can be utilized on small UAVs to enable complex navigation tasks, such as high-speed flight navigation, environment exploration, and estimation of agile UAV motion.
Professor Fu Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department. His research focuses on UAV design (Science Robotics’18 and Science Robotics’ 23), navigation (IJRR’23), and perception (Nature Communication’23), and LiDAR-based odometry (TRO’22), mapping (TRO’23), meshing (TRO’23), bundle adjustment (TRO’23), and place recognition (TRO’23). His team received the IROS’23 Best Paper Award on Robot Mechanisms and the ICRA23 Best Design Award in Agile Movements Workshop. His work are selected for finalists of TMECH’23 Best Paper, IROS’23 Best Paper (two), and ICRA’23 Outstanding Navigation Paper. His papers in Science Robotics are selected as the cover page or for visually featuring.
Clean water and clean air are vital for public health. This project focuses on developing high-efficiency and environmentally sustainable filters for removing harmful air/water pollutants. The team has developed novel architectures and functionalities for the filters to achieve high permeance, high removal efficiency, and excellent reusability.
