Towards Vision-Based Autonomous Landing for Small UAVs: Hardware and Control Algorithms
Hanns-Walter Schulz, Peter Vörsmann · AIAA Infotech@Aerospace 2007 Conference and Exhibit · 2007
This paper describes the development of intelligent vision capabilities for small sized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as part of the program Carolo at the Technische Universitat Braunschweig, Germany. The development’s objective is to create appropriate hardware that suites the requirements of small sized UAVs (5 kg MTOW). Enabling vision-based flight guidance during landing was chosen as the first task and acts as a technology demonstrator for future payload-driven vision capabilities. The first part of the paper describes the developed image processing hardware and its capabilities. The second part focuses on the image based flight guidance and flight control algorithms during the autonomous landing. Nomenclature N = spline number S = spline defining point ls = length covered on the spline in percentages th = spline control variable, horizontal flight path tv = spline control variable, vertical flight path