Towards Robust and Efficient On-board Mapping for Autonomous Miniaturized UAVs

The demand for autonomous nano-sized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has risen due to their small size and agility, allowing for flight in cluttered indoor environments. However, their small size also significantly limits the payload as well as the battery size and computational resources. Especially the scarcity of memory poses a significant obstacle to generating high-resolution occupancy maps. This work presents an on-board 2-dimensional occupancy mapping system for centimeter-scale UAVs using a miniature 64-zone Time of Flight sensor. Experimental evaluations on the Crazyflie 2.1 nano-UAV have demonstrated that produced maps feature a resolution of 10 cm at mapping velocities up to 1.5 m/s, while covering an area of maximum 400 m2.