Autonomous flight of Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicles (FWMAVs) is a major challenge in the field of robotics, due to their light weight and the flapping-induced body motions.

During my talk I will present the first FWMAV with onboard vision processing for autonomous flight in generic environments. This FWMAV, called the DelFly ‘Explorer’, is a 20-gram FWMAV equipped with a 0.98-gram autopilot and a 4.0-gram onboard stereo vision system. I explain the main innovations enabling this achievement, focusing in particular on AI: the computer vision and control algorithms necessary to perform obstacle avoidance in unknown environments. I will also demonstrate the DelFly Explorer at the symposium.