Project description
The sky’s the limit for drone design
Modern Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) present designs primarily inspired by early 20th-century manned aircraft designs. Since the 2000s, the field has seen the dominance of quadrotor drones, which are celebrated for their simplicity and agility. However, their design evolution has largely followed incremental improvements, focusing on structural tweaks combined with autonomy advancements. Conventional multirotor systems face limitations that hinder their performance in challenging applications, and current design methods often require time-consuming customisation for specific tasks. In this context, the EU-funded SPEAR project will integrate evolutionary algorithms and deep learning to optimise both physical form and autonomy of UAVs. This approach will create innovative flying robots, combining unconventional bodies and brains for superior, task-optimised performance, ultimately driving the robotics field forward.
Objective
"The popular unmanned aerial robot designs are inspired by manned aerial vehicles from the early 20th century. Since the 2000s, quadrotor drones have dominated the small aerial robots domain due to their structural simplicity and agility. Is further development bound to incremental improvements in their design alongside progress in the autonomy stack? We argue that future research cannot focus on incremental or separate steps in drone design and autonomy alone. Despite the outstanding progress in various domains –from control to perception and beyond - conventional multirotor systems are subject to multiple limitations that constrain their utilization envelope. Furthermore, today's designers often need to tailor their robots to a specific task in a particular application domain, which however is particularly time-consuming. Unlike the current practice, we propose a novel approach to change the paradigm in the design process. We depart from the compartmentalized approach of human-engineered designs and investigate the holistic co-synthesis of task-specific flying robot embodiment and autonomy through a synergistic combination of evolutionary algorithms and deep learning for navigation. We aim to show the benefits of breeding unconventional ""bodies"" and ""brains”. Bodies rely on an evolutionary combination of rotary wing components, and soft and rigid elements, whereas brains exploit the latest progress in deep neural networks. This fundamental change in the design procedure offers a unique pathway towards more capable, more resilient, intrinsically safe flying robots. Upon its success, SPEAR will drive the robotics community forward and towards automatically designed and task-optimized flying machines with superior performance."
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.2.4 - Digital, Industry and Space
MAIN PROGRAMME
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HORIZON.2.4.5 - Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL4-2022-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
7491 Trondheim
Norway
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.