The use of Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) for inspection and surveillance missions has proved to be extremely useful, however, their usability is negatively impacted by the large power requirements and the limited operating time. This work describes the design and development of a novel hybrid aerial-ground vehicle, enabling multi-modal mobility and long operating time, suitable for long-endurance inspection and monitoring applications. The design consists of a MAV with two tiltable axles and four independent passive wheels, allowing it to fly, approach, land and move on flat and inclined surfaces, while using the same set of actuators for all modes of locomotion. In comparison to existing multi-modal designs with passive wheels, the proposed design enables a higher ground locomotion efficiency, provides a higher payload capacity, and presents one of the lowest mass increases due to the ground actuation mechanism. The vehicle's performance is evaluated through a series of real experiments, demonstrating its flying, ground locomotion and wall-climbing capabilities, and the energy consumption for all modes of locomotion is evaluated.

翻译：微型飞行器（MAVs）在巡检与监视任务中已被证明极具实用性，然而其应用受到高功耗和有限工作时长的严重制约。本文描述了一种新型混合空-地飞行器的设计与开发，该飞行器具备多模态移动能力和长工作周期，适用于长续航巡检与监测应用。其设计包括一个带有两个可倾斜轴和四个独立无动力轮的MAV，使其能够在飞行、接近、着陆后在平面和倾斜表面移动，并在这四种移动模式下使用同一套驱动机构。与现有的采用无动力轮的多模态设计相比，所提出的设计具有更高的地面移动效率、更大的有效载荷能力，并且因地面驱动机构所增加的质量是同类设计中最低的。通过一系列真实实验评估了飞行器的性能，展示了其飞行、地面移动和壁面爬行能力，并评估了所有移动模式下的能耗情况。