Communication and position sensing are among the most important capabilities for swarm robots to interact with their peers and perform tasks collaboratively. However, the hardware required to facilitate communication and position sensing is often too complicated, expensive, and bulky to be carried on swarm robots. Here we present Maneuverable Piccolissimo 3 (MP3), a minimalist, single motor drone capable of executing inter-robot communication via infrared light and triangulation-based sensing of relative bearing, distance, and elevation using message arrival time. Thanks to its novel design, MP3 can communicate with peers and localize itself using simple components, keeping its size and mass small and making it inherently safe for human interaction. We present the hardware and software design of MP3 and demonstrate its capability to localize itself, fly stably, and maneuver in the environment using peer-to-peer communication and sensing.

翻译：通信与位置感知是集群机器人实现同伴交互与协同任务执行的关键能力。然而，支持通信与位置感知所需的硬件通常过于复杂、昂贵且笨重，难以在集群机器人上搭载。本文提出Maneuverable Piccolissimo 3（MP3）——一种极简设计的单电机无人机，能够通过红外光实现机器人间通信，并利用消息到达时间进行基于三角测量的相对方位、距离与高度感知。得益于其创新设计，MP3仅需简单组件即可实现同伴通信与自身定位，从而保持小巧的尺寸与质量，并确保人机交互的固有安全性。本文详细介绍了MP3的硬件与软件设计，并通过实验验证了其利用点对点通信与感知实现自主定位、稳定飞行及环境机动能力。