Autonomy is the handoff between many systems—not one clever node.
The SubTerrain challenge required a quadrotor to enter a cave-like environment, navigate without a prebuilt map, detect lanterns, build an environmental representation and complete the mission as a coordinated system.
Inputs
Vehicle state, camera data, depth information, mission state and an initially unknown environment.
Outputs
Feasible trajectories, stable tracking commands, mapped space, detected targets and reliable mission transitions.
Connecting planning intent to closed-loop vehicle behaviour.
Geometric Tracking Control
Worked on the controller that converts sampled trajectory references into multirotor commands while respecting nonlinear attitude dynamics.
Trajectory Generation
Integrated minimum-snap trajectory generation and sampling between mission waypoints.
State Estimation Workflow
Developed the camera-calibration and EKF workflow used to evaluate noisy or drifting state estimates.
Mission Integration and State Machine
Connected takeoff, cave entry, autonomous navigation and goal states into a testable end-to-end pipeline.
A modular ROS 2 pipeline with explicit interfaces.
Perceive & Map
Process camera and depth data for lantern detection, point clouds and OctoMap output.
Plan
Find exploration targets and produce waypoint-to-waypoint minimum-snap trajectories.
Estimate & Control
Filter state information and track sampled position, velocity and attitude references.
Coordinate
Use mission states and command arbitration to govern automatic and manual modes.
A multidisciplinary academic team with shared integration ownership.
Aqib Habib
Geometric control, state estimation, EKF workflow, mission logic, state machine, and cross-package integration.
Autonomous Systems · Team 17
Shared development across perception, lantern detection, 3D mapping, planning, simulation and system verification.
Technical University of Munich
Academic autonomy project using a ROS 2 stack and Unity-based quadrotor simulation.
A reproducible autonomy stack that completes the mission sequence.
The integrated system supports automatic takeoff, cave-entry flight, autonomous navigation and return-to-goal transitions. It also includes manual override, flight-data recording and documented launch controls so individual subsystems can be tuned without dismantling the full pipeline.