How to Launch a Quadrotor

We demonstrate a new method to automatically recover and stabilize a drone from any initial condition, without GPS. On the one hand, this new technology will allow drones to be launched by simply tossing them in the air, like a “baseball”. On the other hand, it will make drones much safer since they can recover stable flight after a system failure. This is crucial for commercial use of drones, such as parcel delivery. Our quadrotor is equipped with a single camera, an inertial measurement unit, and a distance sensor (Teraranger One). Since we use only onboard sensors and no GPS, the method works both indoors and outdoors. Details about the system can be found on: And in our paper: M. Faessler, F. Fontana, C. Forster, D. Scaramuzza, Automatic Re-Initialization and Failure Recovery for Aggressive Flight with a Monocular Vision-Based Quadrotor, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Seattle, May, 2015 Video credits: Flavio Fontana, Matthias Faessler, Christian Forster, Elias Mueggler, and Davide Scaramuzza Robotics and Perception Group, University of Zurich