A collision-resilient aerial vehicle with icosahedron tensegrity structure

Abstract: Aerial vehicles with collision resilience can operate with more confidence in environments with obstacles that are hard to detect and avoid. This paper presents the methodology used to design a collision resilient aerial vehicle with icosahedron tensegrity structure. A simplified stress analysis of the tensegrity frame under impact forces is performed to guide the selection of its components. In addition, an autonomous controller is presented to reorient the vehicle from an arbitrary orientation on the ground to help it take off. Experiments show that the vehicle can successfully reorient itself after landing upside-down and can survive collisions with speed up to 6.5m/s.