Vision-based autonomous navigation and landing of an unmanned aerial vehicle using natural landmarks

TitleVision-based autonomous navigation and landing of an unmanned aerial vehicle using natural landmarks
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2009
AuthorsCesetti A., Frontoni E, Mancini A, Zingaretti P, Longhi S
Conference Name2009 17th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, MED 2009
Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of a vision-based navigation and landing algorithm for an autonomous helicopter. The vision system allows to define target areas from a high resolution aerial or satellite image to determine the waypoints of the navigation trajectory or the landing area. The helicopter is required to navigate from an initial position to a final position in a partially known environment using GPS and vision, to locate a landing target (a helipad of a known shape or a natural landmark) and to land on it. The vision system, using a feature-based image matching algorithm, finds the area and gives feedbacks to the control system for autonomous landing. Vision is used for accurate target detection, recognition and tracking. The helicopter updates its landing target parameters owing to vision and uses an on board behavior-based controller to follow a path to the landing site. Results show the appropriateness of the vision-based approach that does not require any artificial landmark (e.g., helipad) and is quite robust to occlusions, light variations and seasonal changes (e.g., brown or green leaves). © 2009 IEEE.

URLhttp://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84885338997&partnerID=40&md5=e544d46c421bd62be9c0ad9fa4ac016b
DOI10.1109/MED.2009.5164661