A fixed-wing aircraft for hovering in caves, tunnels, and buildings

Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are small bird-sized aircraft with applications in reconnaissance, search-and rescue, airborne agent and pathogen detection, and target acquisition. Fixed-wing MAVs cannot hover and thus, are not able to fly in tight, enclosed spaces. Rotary-wing platforms can hover but are limited by endurance. This paper presents a fixed-wing MAV with a secondary flight mode (i.e. hovering) allowing it to fly in caves, tunnels, and buildings. The sensing and control system used to achieve autonomous hovering is also described. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first documented success of autonomously hovering a fixed-wing MAV in the open literature.