Toward Indoor Autonomous Flight Using a Multi-rotor Vehicle

The objective of the paper is to detail progress toward an indoor autonomous micro aerial vehicle (MAV) that uses a multi-layered hardware and software control architecture. We build a quadrotor MAV with design considerations for indoor use and document the design process. Our design uses a three-layered control system in both the hardware and software components. We focus on using a modular control architecture to allow for individual development of layers. For initial progress toward autonomous flight, we create an automated altitude control program that enables the MAV to hover stably at a given height. Experiments include hovering and directed flight through hallways with obstacles. Initial results provide optimistic feedback for future experiments concerning traversing indoor environments using an autonomous MAV with a three-layered control architecture.