Drones Conceived for Collisions (ROCOCO) - EXPLOR'AE project

Drones are useful for environmental and agricultural monitoring. Their main advantage is their low impact (in particular on the ground), but their drawbacks include their relative fragility and their energy usage. This latter drawback is exacerbated whenever changing directions. They remain an important tool, already used in several projects of the unit (example).

Recent work has shown that a drone (protected by a shell) bouncing off surfaces can avoid slowing down to turn and thus save energy. However, the results were obtained by simulations or experiments inside (known environments, simple and straight surfaces). The goal of the project is to test this hypothesis in outside environments, which are more complex: various kinds of surfaces, obstacles, curved trees, unknown or dynamic environment...

The project has two main components: online planning and obstacle detection and classification. It will open the way to potential energy saving or monitoring in areas where the map is incomplete or dynamic.

Contact : Antoine Dailly

Participants : Riccardo Bertoglio, Christophe Cariou, Johann Laconte, Raphaël Rouveure

The ROCOCO project is funed by France through the National Research Agency under the France 2030 label, with reference « ANR-24-RRII-0003 » and operated by the EXPLOR'AE INRAE program.