Lorenz Meier

ETH Zürich
Universitätstrasse 6
CH-8092 Zürich

Department of Computer Science
Computer Vision and Geometry Group
CAB G 86.3

lm@inf.ethz.ch

About Me

I'm a PhD student working on mobile localization 3D reconstruction on smartphones and micro air vehicles. I started my current project, PIXHAWK [ https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/ ], in 2009 as a master student. It is about autonomously flying small helicopters. I participated in the sFly [ http://sfly.org/ ] EU research project 2011-2012 and I'm currently also working on realtime 3D reconstruction on mobile phones. I contribute in my spare time to the PX4 autopilot [ https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/ ] platform.

For ETH Students

You can do semester, bachelor or master theses as well as D-ITET group projects and D-MAVT focus projects with me. Note that students that performed well on a thesis have the opportunity to do an internship with a partner company in San Diego, California.

Student Theses
PIXHAWK Student Team [ https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/ ]

Awards

2008 — ETH Excellence and Opportunity Award - two year full scholarship for master studies and a personal research project (PIXHAWK [ http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/lomeier/pixhawk/ ]).
2009 — 1st Place EMAV 2009 Indoor Autonomy with my PIXHAWK student team (Photos [ http://pixhawk.ethz.ch/wiki/overview/awards ])
2010 — 2nd Place IMAV 2010 Indoor Autonomy, Rotary Wing with my PIXHAWK student team (Photos [ http://pixhawk.ethz.ch/wiki/overview/awards ])
2011 — ABB Research Prize for master thesis "Fast and Robust Localization and Mapping on Micro Air Vehicles" (ABB Press Release [ http://www.abb.com/cawp/chabb124/cce3998a5ca83b5ec125795d004c5d2a.aspx ])
2012 — Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship for research on visual-inertial motion tracking on mobile devices

Publications

Friedrich Fraundorfer, Lionel Heng, Dominik Honegger, Gim Hee Lee, Lorenz Meier, Petri Tanskanen, and Marc Pollefeys. Vision-Based Autonomous Mapping and Exploration Using a Quadrotor MAV, Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2012. (PDF [ http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/lomeier/publications/IROS_2012_autonomous_vision_exploration.pdf ])
Dominik Honegger, Lorenz Meier, Petri Tanskanen, Pierre Greisen, and Marc Pollefeys. Real-time velocity estimation based on optical flow and disparity matching, Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2012. (PDF [ http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/lomeier/publications/IROS_2012_realtime_optical_flow_stereo.pdf ])
Lorenz Meier, Petri Tanskanen, Friedrich Fraundorfer, and Marc Pollefeys. PIXHAWK: A system for autonomous flight using onboard computer vision, Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2011 IEEE International Conference on , vol., no., pp.2992-2997, 9-13 May 2011 doi: 10.1109/ICRA.2011.5980229 (PDF [ http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/lomeier/publications/pixhawk_icra2011.pdf ])
Lionel Heng, Lorenz Meier, Petri Tanskanen, Friedrich Fraundorfer, and Marc Pollefeys. Autonomous Obstacle Avoidance and Maneuvering on a Vision-Guided MAV Using On-Board Processing, In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2011. (PDF [ http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/lomeier/publications/ICRA_2011_obstacle_avoidance.pdf ])
Lorenz Meier, Petri Tanskanen, Lionel Heng, Gim Hee Lee, Friedrich Fraundorfer, and Marc Pollefeys. Pixhawk: A micro aerial vehicle design for autonomous flight using onboard computer vision. Autonomous Robots (AURO), 2012. (PDF [ http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/lomeier/publications/pixhawk_auro2012.pdf ])

Open Source

I maintain and contribute to a number of open source projects. SEE THE VIDEOS BELOW!.

QGroundControl [ http://qgroundcontrol.org/ ] - an user interface (GUI) to small unmanned aerial vehicles. Main developer / maintainer
MAVLink [ http://qgroundcontrol.org/mavlink/ ] - communication library for small-to-large robotic vehicles. Main developer / maintainer
MAVCONN [ http://github.com/pixhawk/mavconn/ ] - Linux/Unix/Posix middleware for micro air vehicles, uses MAVLink as message format. Core developer / maintainer
PX4 Autopilot [ http://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/ ] - High-perfomance, open hardware/software, low cost, POSIX inspired autopilot (PX4FMU) for micro air vehicles. Core developer / maintainer

Videos

Overview video of the PX4 Autopilot Hardware and Flight (2012) [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/i-JPp7rihX8 ]

Autonomous pure vision based exploration (IROS 2012) [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zy-BiNiVw0E ]

Brief ZURICH.MINDS Talk on "A Vision for Autonomous Flight" [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/3G7dOcfWaEk ]

sFly ETH EU Project Video — joint work with ETH ASL and EU partners (2012) [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8qMwMKLeZkc ]

Autonomous Flight using Computer Vision in Natural Indoor and Outdoor Environments (2011) [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/kbJjOjzzncs ]

QGroundControl Operator Control Unit (2011) [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/LaQ0bH0WW80 ]

Interactive, autonomous PIXHAWK Demo at the European Computer Vision Conference (ECCV 2010) [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SgXCTl__N7E ]

Autonomous marker based flight (IMAV 2010) [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/b6CJK5_xb3g ]

PIXHAWK at onboard pattern recognition (EMAV 2009) [ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/PM0R_Nrw9DM ]
PIXHAWK won the 1st place in the Indoor Competition at EMAV 2009, Delft, Netherlands.

Student Theses

With more than 40 students in the PIXHAWK team over five semesters the project has a successful track of student theses. Students can do master theses, semester theses, bachelor theses and research in computer science projects with us. We're welcoming computer science, robotics, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering students with a focus in computer vision, robotics, control and electronics design.

Current theses

If you're interested in one of these theses, please contact me via email

Master / semester thesis: Realtime Horizon and Vanishing Point Estimation — Master thesis in which the horizon and vanishing point should be estimated for handheld and aerial applications in real-time to compensate inertial sensor offsets. The thesis will be partially developed in Matlab, before a C/C++ prototype is implemented on a Galaxy SIII
Semester thesis: PX4 Autopilot Multirotor Autonomous Validation — Semester thesis in which the PX4 autopilot [ https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/ ] should be integrated and tested with GPS flight on an AR.Drone 2.0 frame, a Frame with Mikrokopter motor controllers and a DJI frame. experience with model airplanes / multirotors and CAD knowledge preferred.
Master / semester thesis: Autonomous Flight Control and State Estimation (GPS/Vision) on Quadrotors
Master / semester thesis: Autonomous Waypoint Flight and State Estimation (GPS/Vision) on Airplanes
Master thesis: Realtime Robust Localization and Parallel Mapping on Smartphones (Galaxy SIII / ARM Cortex A9 Quadcore)
Semester thesis: Autonomous driving and obstacle avoidance with PX4 autopilot [ https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/ ] and ROS — The goal of this thesis is to build a small (RC-car sized) autonomous robot that can drive autonomously based on GPS waypoints and an optical flow sensor and performs obstacle avoidance in real-time on a small quadcore onboard computer. Advised together with Lionel Heng (main advisor for obstacle avoidance part).

Past theses

PX4 Autopilot Quadrotor GPS Flight and System Design — Thomas Gubler, Julian Oes / FS 2012 (Sem. Project)
PX4 Autopilot Airplane GPS Flight — Nils Wenzler, Ivan Ovinnikov / FS 2012 (D-ITET group project)
Realtime optical flow and stereo on FPGA hardware — Dominik Honegger / HS 2011 (Master thesis)
People detection and tracking — Benjamin Flueck / HS 2011 (Bachelor thesis)
Quadrotor Control Design — Laurens Mackay / HS 2011 (Semester thesis)

Teaching Assistant

Computer Vision Lab (D-INFK) — HS2011
Informatik I (D-MAVT) — FS2012
Computer Vision Lab (D-INFK) — HS2012