Arctic Test Flights of the CMU Autonomous Helicopter

This paper presents our experiences during the test flights of the CMU autonomous helicopter in the Canadian Arctic, the first deployment of this technology for a real-world application. The mission required building dense topological maps of Devon Island’s Haughton crater for NASA scientists studying Mars-analog environments. The paper presents our system design and preparation, flight test results, and example maps produced by the onboard laser-based mapping system during the mission.