Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) rely heavily on visual sensors to perceive obstacles and explore environments. Current UAVs are limited in both perception capability and task efficiency because of a small sensor field of view (FoV). One solution could be to leverage self-rotation in UAVs to extend the sensor FoV without consuming extra power. This natural mechanism, induced by the counter-torque of the UAV motor, has rarely been exploited by existing autonomous UAVs because of the difficulties in design and control due to highly coupled and nonlinear dynamics and the challenges in navigation brought by the high-rate self-rotation. Here, we present powered-flying ultra-underactuated LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensing aerial robot (PULSAR), an agile and self-rotating UAV whose three-dimensional position is fully controlled by actuating only one motor to obtain the required thrust and moment. The use of a single actuator effectively reduces the energy loss in powered flights. Consequently, PULSAR consumes 26.7% less power than the benchmarked quadrotor with the same total propeller disk area and avionic payloads while retaining a good level of agility. Augmented by an onboard LiDAR sensor, PULSAR can perform autonomous navigation in unknown environments and detect both static and dynamic obstacles in panoramic views without any external instruments. We report the experiments of PULSAR in environment exploration and multidirectional dynamic obstacle avoidance with the extended FoV via self-rotation, which could lead to increased perception capability, task efficiency, and flight safety.

中文翻译：

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一种具有扩展传感器视野的自旋转单驱动无人机，用于自主导航

无人驾驶飞行器 (UAV) 严重依赖视觉传感器来感知障碍物和探索环境。由于传感器视场 (FoV) 较小，目前的无人机在感知能力和任务效率方面都受到限制。一种解决方案可能是利用无人机中的自旋转来扩展传感器 FoV，而无需消耗额外的功率。这种由无人机电机的反扭矩引起的自然机制，由于高度耦合和非线性动力学在设计和控制方面的困难以及高速率自给导航带来的挑战，很少被现有的自主无人机所利用-回转。在这里，我们展示了动力飞行的超欠驱动 LiDAR（光探测和测距）传感空中机器人 (PULSAR)，一种灵活的自旋转无人机，其三维位置完全控制，只需启动一个电机即可获得所需的推力和力矩。使用单个执行器有效地减少了动力飞行中的能量损失。因此，PULSAR 的功耗比具有相同总螺旋桨盘面积和航空电子有效载荷的基准四旋翼飞行器低 26.7%，同时保持良好的敏捷性水平。借助机载 LiDAR 传感器，PULSAR 可以在未知环境中进行自主导航，并在无需任何外部仪器的情况下检测全景视图中的静态和动态障碍物。我们报告了 PULSAR 在环境探索和多方向动态避障中通过自旋转扩展 FoV 的实验，这可以提高感知能力、任务效率、