We have achieved our first stereo-based obstacle avoidance experiment. The heli was tasked to fly to a gps location on the far side of a palm tree, so had to detect and avoid the tree in order to reach the goal. Videos are available here. 

First successful attempt at vision-based obstacle avoidance with the heli. Optic flow was measured in images on either side of the heli, and a control command was generated to turn the heli away from the side of greater flow (ie where there was a closer obstacle). This is the first step in enabling the heli to fly through urban canyons while avoiding buildings and other obstacles. A short video is available here. 

The AVATAR won the Research Project category of the PC/104 Consortium's annual design contest. Team members attended the award ceremony at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco. The story was covered on linuxdevices.com.