Making a fault-tolerant RL Octocopter
Article excerpt
Karolina Dubiel built a custom flat octocopter from scratch with no prior hardware experience, from idea to flying drone in 2.5 weeks. The CAD was done in Fusion 360, CNC-milling the full airframe from G10 fiberglass and carbon fiber, and soldering all the electronics. My end goal: an RL-based controller that sustains flight through […]
Karolina Dubiel built a custom flat octocopter from scratch with no prior hardware experience, from idea to flying drone in 2.5 weeks.
The CAD was done in Fusion 360, CNC-milling the full airframe from G10 fiberglass and carbon fiber, and soldering all the electronics.
My end goal: an RL-based controller that sustains flight through single and dual motor failures in sim, deployed zero-shot.
Phases
✓Phase I, CAD a custom octocopter design, CNC cut it, and assemble the frame, motors, and propellers.
✓Phase II, Wire up electronics and take flight as a regular FC-powered octocopter.
◉Phase III, Develop and train an RL policy capable of supporting the octocopter through regular flight and dual-motor failures.
○Phase IV, Complete the sim-to-real transition and achieve RL-powered flight. Sustain flight after shutting off 2 motors randomly in field tests.
Check out the details of the project in the post here.