Autonomous 3D Position Control for a Safe Single Motor Micro Aerial Vehicle

We present the Maneuverable Piccolissimo 2 (MP2), an autonomous, controllable, single motor micro aerial vehicle (MAV). The small size of MP2 makes it safe to operate in the presence of humans, and its simple design facilitates the creation of large swarms of capable MAVs. MP2 is equipped with on-board sensing capabilities and uses active environmental beacons to compute its three-dimensional position and yaw orientation. Its novel design enables autonomous takeoff, flight, and landing while maintaining a small, simple form factor. We describe a feedback controller and demonstrate its feasibility in a series of flight tests that display position holding, step response, and path following capabilities. The results indicate that MP2 is capable of controlled autonomous 3D flight with only one actuator.