Design and Experiment Research of 3D Environmental Perception System for Split-type Flying Vehicle

Flying vehicles can switch between ground-driving and air-flying modes according to road and weather conditions, which is of great significance for improving traffic efficiency, adapting to complex terrain, and reducing the cost of transportation facilities. The split-type flying vehicle is composed of three independent modules: an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, an intelligent control cockpit, and an autopilot chassis. It has two functions, unmanned driving on the ground and autonomous flight in the air. First of all, based on task requirements, such as automatic driving and multi-module autonomous docking guidance, the sensor configuration and deployment scheme of the 3D environmental perception system is proposed and the sensors are calibrated. Secondly, a multi-sensor fusion environment perception algorithm is designed to realize object detection, drivable area segmentation, and multi-module autonomous docking and positioning. Finally, the real-world verification is carried out on the high-performance edge computing equipment of the split-type flying vehicle. The experimental results show that the perception system can achieve an effective environmental perception effect, which provides a new solution for the automatic driving and autonomous docking guidance of split-type flying vehicles. © 2024 Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society. All rights reserved.