Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are used nowadays in a wide variety of applications, exploring zones affected by natural disasters, surveilling, or transporting packages in urban areas. While drones provide opportunities previously unavailable, such as the ability to easily traverse rough terrain, quickly and efficiently explore unknown areas, and possess excellent communication capabilities, they also come with their own limitations. UAVs have a reduced flight time due to low battery capacity and cannot carry heavy payloads, including more powerful computers, heavy sensors, or manipulators.
These constraints can be overcome by developing cooperation between drones and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), which offer higher payload and battery capacity. Simultaneously, UGVs can benefit from drones' greater range of sensors and higher traversability of difficult terrain. In scenarios where the drone and mobile robot cooperate to map and navigate unknown terrain, there is potential for achieving much higher efficiency in specific tasks, creating a whole new realm of possible applications.
