Omnicopter, omni-directional six degrees-of-freedom flying machine, Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

The Omnicopter - an omni-directional six degrees-of-freedom flying machine

In this video, we present a novel six degrees-of-freedom aerial vehicle. Based on a static force and torque analysis for generic actuator configurations, we have derived an eight-rotor configuration that maximizes the vehicle's agility in all directions. The resulting vehicle possesses full force and torque authority in all three dimensions, allowing it to fly novel maneuvers. For more details, please refer to the research paper "Design, Modeling and Control of an Omni-Directional Aerial Vehicle", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016

* Researchers
Dario Brescianini and Raffaello D'Andrea
Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control (IDSC), ETH Zurich, Switzerland

* Location
Flying Machine Arena, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

* Technical details
Size: 0.45m x 0.45m x 0.45m
Weight: 0.886kg
Electronics: Custom design using a Cortex M4F microprocessor
Battery: Thunder Power TP1800-4SM70
Motors: MRM Titan 2208-1100
Motor controllers: Dys SN20A Mini with SimonK firmware.
Propellers: Graupner 3D 8x4.5
Infrastructure: Flying Machine Arena

* Acknowledgements
This work is supported by and builds upon prior contributions by numerous collaborators in the Flying Machine Arena project.
This research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

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We have developed a computationally efficient trajectory generator for six degrees-of-freedom multirotor vehicles, i.e. vehicles that can independently control their position and attitude. The trajectory generator is capable of generating approximately 500'000 trajectories per second that guide the multirotor vehicle from any initial state, i.e. position, velocity and attitude, to any desired final state in a given time. In this video, we show an example application that requires the evaluation of a large number of trajectories in real time.

* Multirotor vehicle
The multirotor vehicle used in the demonstration is an omni-directional eight-rotor vehicle. Its unique actuator configuration gives it full force and torque authority in all three dimensions, allowing it to fly novel maneuvers.

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