Reactive Vision Based Obstacle Avoidance with Camera Field of View Constraints
Randal W. Beard, Jeffery B. Saunders · AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit · 2008
The lack of reliable, low power, low weight sensors make automatic obstacle avoidance for fixed wing micro air vehicles (MAV) a difficult problem. Traditional sensors for obstacle detection such as radar are too heavy and too large for MAVs and generating paths around detected obstacles is non-trivial. EO/IRCameras are small and lightweight providing a viable alternative to large sensors. We assume that vision processing provides object segmentation and a range estimate to nearby obstacles. We propose a nonlinear guidance law that directly reacts to image data by pushing the obstacles to the edge of the camera field-of-view, and thus avoiding collision. As the MAV passes the obstacle, the original trajectory is resumed. This method can be used in conjunction with high level path planners.