LAIDR: A Robotics Research Platform for Entertainment Applications

In this paper, a Lighter Than Air Indoor Robot (LAIDR) is developed for entertainment applications. An Adaptive Propulsion Mechanism (APM) is proposed to actuate the LAIDR using the minimal number of Propulsion Units (PUs) and facilitate the variable in-mission PU configurations within the same airframe. Usually, the helium-inflated vehicle poses instability due to body inertia and indoor disturbance, i.e., air stream. Therefore, a customized control system is designed using MathWorks PX4 autopilots support from embedded coder. The designed controllers stabilize the motion by controlling PU's in-frame angle and rotational speed. Moreover, the Ultra-wide Band (UWB) sensors are used to localize the LAIDR in the indoor environment. Finally, a real-time implementation is elaborated to justify the LAIDR applicability in the entertainment applications.