Detection of the tau-margin and application to autonomous control of a flying robot

In this paper, we focus on the concept of time to contact and propose a simple sensor system for detecting the time to contact, and apply it to autonomous control of a flying robot. To discuss the effectiveness of the proposed sensor system and a controller using the sensor system, we develop a flying robot simply without CPU(s) or high spec sensors. We employ only 5 CdS cells and simple analogue circuits for controlling it, and we realize behaviour for chasing a moving light bulb with stable flying. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed sensor system and flying robot, simulations and experiments have been conducted and chasing behaviours have been realized.