Abstract
In this paper a vision-based approach for guidance and safe landing of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is proposed. The UAV is required to navigate from an initial to a final position in a partially known environment. The guidance system allows a remote user to define target areas from a high resolution aerial or satellite image to determine either the waypoints of the navigation trajectory or the landing area. A feature-based image-matching algorithm finds the natural landmarks and gives feedbacks to an onboard, hierarchical, behaviour-based control system for autonomous navigation and landing. Two algorithms for safe landing area detection are also proposed, based on a feature optical flow analysis. The main novelty is in the vision-based architecture, extensively tested on a helicopter, which, in particular, does not require any artificial landmark (e.g., helipad). Results show the appropriateness of the vision-based approach, which is robust to occlusions and light variations.
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Cesetti, A., Frontoni, E., Mancini, A., Zingaretti, P., Longhi, S. (2009). A Vision-Based Guidance System for UAV Navigation and Safe Landing using Natural Landmarks. In: Valavanis, K.P., Beard, R., Oh, P., Ollero, A., Piegl, L.A., Shim, H. (eds) Selected papers from the 2nd International Symposium on UAVs, Reno, Nevada, U.S.A. June 8–10, 2009. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8764-5_12
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