The University of Twente (UT), partner in the AUTOASSESS project, received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE ICUAS 2024 Conference. The event, arguably the most important conference of the year on flying systems in robotics and control, was held in Chania, Greece, from June 4th to 7th.
The award-winning paper, titled “Experimental Validation of Sensitivity-Aware Trajectory Planning for a Quadrotor UAV Under Parametric Uncertainty”, was developed in the context of AUTOASSESS and it counted on the participation of international experts, including Antonio Franchi, leader of UT’s team working in this project and Principal Investigator of the Robotics and Mechatronics (RAM), a department of the Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science Faculty (EEMCS).
The main achievement of the presented work is the introduction of methods for the generation of trajectories for flying vehicles, which minimize the input and state sensitivity of the real execution in spite of model uncertainties. The methods are demonstrated with real experiments on flying robots, showcasing its effectiveness and making it possible to advance towards the safe navigation inside dangerous environments such as ballast tanks. This technology allows aerial robots to perform inspections under remotely human supervision, reducing the risk to human lives that would otherwise be involved in direct inspections.
The recognition of the University of Twente and the AUTOASSESS project at the IEEE ICUAS 2024 Conference highlights the importance and impact of remote-controlled aerial systems and their applications in hazardous environments.
