Prototype UAV helicopter working in cooperative environments

Today small autonomous helicopters offer a low budget platform for aerial applications such as surveillance (both military and civilian), land management, and earth science. In this paper we introduce a prototype of autonomous aerial vehicle, the Helibot helicopter, specifically designed for applications in a cooperative network based on autonomous agents as UAV and UGV. We present our scalable and robust architecture, focusing in particular on hardware and real time solutions. A mechanical structure for safe testing is then presented. ©2007 IEEE.