Implementation of obstacle avoidance technique for indoor coaxial rotorcraft with Scanning Laser Range Finder

Obstacle avoidance is one of the most challenging problems for the topic of UAV indoor navigation. In this paper, an indoor obstacle avoidance strategy based on Scanning Laser Range Finder (SLRF) is developed, so that high-level flight commands and flight paths can be generated for an unmanned coaxial rotorcraft in real time. The developed strategy comprises three flight modes including hovering turn, forward flight and gate exploration. During flight, the UAV can switch from one mode to another in the presence of obstacles according to the analysis of SLRF measurements. Both simulations and real experiments have been conducted to validate the proposed strategy. The test results have successfully demonstrated that the method is feasible and effective.