Sherbrooke's Multimodal Autonomous Drone (S-MAD), Createk Design Lab, Université de Sherbrooke, Quebec, Sherbrooke, Canada

[Airicist]

Developer - Createk Design Lab (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?t=17103)

[Airicist]

Article "Autonomous Thrust-Assisted Perching of a Fixed-Wing UAV on Vertical Surfaces (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-63537-8_26)"

by Dino Mehanovic, John Bass, Thomas Courteau, David Rancourt, Alexis Lussier Desbiens
July 16, 2017

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/RSn62JKIRks

The S-MAD: a drone landing on walls like a bird

Published on Aug 2, 2017


Sherbrooke's Multimodal Autonomous Drone (S-MAD) performing autonomous landing and takeoffs from walls. Presented at Living Machines 2017, Stanford (Best Robotics Paper Award). More information can be found in the following article:

Mehanovic, D., Bass, J., Courteau, T., Rancourt, D. and Desbiens, A.L., 2017, July. Autonomous Thrust-Assisted Perching of a Fixed-Wing UAV on Vertical Surfaces. Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems (pp. 302-314).

Abstract:
We present the first fixed-wing drone that autonomously perches and takes off from vertical surfaces. Inspired by birds, this airplane uses a thrust-assisted pitch-up maneuver to slow down rapidly before touchdown. Microspines are used to cling to rough walls, while strictly onboard sensing is used for control. The effect of thrust on the suspension’s landing envelope is analyzed and a simple vertical velocity controller is proposed to create smooth and robust descents towards a wall. Multiple landings are performed over a range of flight conditions.

[Airicist]

Article "This Drone Has Claws, Lands on a Vertical Walls (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evzyqm/this-drone-can-gracefully-land-on-a-vertical-wall)"
Researchers at the Université de Sherbrooke designed the sweet device.

by Louise Matsakis
August 4 2017