Development of a Hovering Robot System for Calamity Observation

A QRT(Quad-Rotor Type) hovering robot system is developed for quick detection and observation of the circumstances under calamity environment such as indoor fire spots. The UAV(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) is equipped with four propellers driven by each electric motor, an embedded controller using a DSP, INS(Inertial Navigation System) using 3-axis rate gyros, a CCD camera with wireless communication transmitter for observation, and an ultrasonic range sensor for height control. The developed hovering robot shows stable flying performances under the adoption of RIC(Robust Internal-loop Compensator) based disturbance compensation and the vision based localization method. The UAV can also avoid obstacles using eight IR and four ultrasonic range sensors. The VTOL(Vertical Take-Off and Landing) flying object flies into indoor fire spots and sends the images captured by the CCD camera to the operator. This kind of small-sized UAV can be widely used in various calamity observation fields without danger of human beings under harmful environment.