Position estimation system by cable connecting multicopter and helipad

Abstract

When a natural disaster occurs, it is necessary to perform emergency restoration work using an unmanned construction machine. To support the work, the authors are considering a method using wired Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MUAV) to obtain an external viewpoint for remotely controlling a construction machine. For MUAV's autonomous flight in various outdoor environments, robust position estimation that does not only depend on Global Positioning System (GPS) is necessary. Therefore, we propose a position estimation method by observing the slacked tether. In this paper, we describe a development of the helipad that can estimate the MUAV position by observing the slacked tether, and report evaluation of the position estimation accuracy.