Absolute positioning control of indoor flying robot using ultrasonic waves and verification system

Currently, absolute positioning methods for indoor flying robots use multiple cameras to measure position through image processing. However, such systems are large scale and costly. Therefore, we have developed a measurement and control system that uses ultrasonic waves. The system consists of a ground base with three ultrasonic transmitter units and a flying robot. The flying robot is equipped with onboard measurement and control devices. This system is small and inexpensive. This paper reports on a verification system that proved the effectiveness of the proposed system. The verification system resulted in improvements to the measurement and control devices. Then, the system realized autonomous flight using ultrasonic waves. This paper describes the details of the method for using ultrasonic waves to control the positioning of an indoor flying robot, the newly developed hardware and software that enable the autonomous flight, and the results of a flight experiment.