Decoupling the Eye: A Key toward a Robust Hovering for Sighted Aerial Robots

Augustin Manecy (1, 2) , Raphaël Juston (1) , Nicolas Marchand (2) , Stéphane Viollet (1)

1 BIOROB - Biorobotique
2 GIPSA-SYSCO - GIPSA - Systèmes non linéaires et complexité

Inspired by natural visual systems where gaze stabilization is at a premium, we simulated an aerial robot with a decoupled eye to achieve more robust hovering above a ground target despite strong lateral and rotational disturbances. In this paper, two different robots are compared for the same disturbances and displacements. The first robot is equipped with a fixed eye featuring a large field-of-view (FOV) and the second robot is endowed with a decoupled eye featuring a small FOV (about ±5°). Even if this mechanical decoupling increases the mechanical complexity of the robot, this study demonstrates that disturbances are rejected faster and the computational complexity is clearly decreased. Thanks to bio-inspired visuo-motor reflexes, the decoupled eye robot is able to hold its gaze locked onto a distant target and to reject strong disturbances by profiting of the small inertia of the decoupled eye.

Domaines: Automatique / Robotique; Automatique

Augustin Manecy, Raphaël Juston, Nicolas Marchand, Stéphane Viollet. Decoupling the Eye: A Key toward a Robust Hovering for Sighted Aerial Robots. Advances in Aerospace Guidance, Navigation and Control, Springer, pp.317-336, 2013, 978-3-642-38253-6. ⟨10.1007/978-3-642-38253-6_20⟩. ⟨hal-00819744⟩