Landing a VTOL Unmanned Aerial Vehicle on a Moving Platform Using Optical Flow

This paper presents a nonlinear controller for a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that exploits a measurement optical flow to enable hover and landing control on a moving platform, such as, for example, the deck of a sea-going vessel. The VTOL vehicle is assumed to...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on robotics 2012-02, Vol.28 (1), p.77-89
Main Authors: HerisseĢ, B., Hamel, T., Mahony, R., Russotto, F-X
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerodynamics
Applied sciences
Automatic
Automatic landing
Cameras
Computer science
control theory
systems
Control system analysis
Control system synthesis
Control theory. Systems
Controllers
Engineering Sciences
Exact sciences and technology
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
Motion control
nonlinear control
Nonlinear optics
optical flow
Optical imaging
Optical variables measurement
Physics
Robotics
Simulation
Solid dynamics (ballistics, collision, multibody system, stabilization...)
Solid mechanics
Systems stability
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Vehicle dynamics
Vehicles
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper presents a nonlinear controller for a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that exploits a measurement optical flow to enable hover and landing control on a moving platform, such as, for example, the deck of a sea-going vessel. The VTOL vehicle is assumed to be equipped with a minimum sensor suite [i.e., a camera and an inertial measurement unit (IMU)], manoeuvring over a textured flat target plane. Two different tasks are considered in this paper. The first concerns the stabilization of the vehicle relative to the moving platform that maintains a constant offset from a moving reference. The second concerns regulation of automatic vertical landing onto a moving platform. Rigorous analysis of system stability is provided, and simulations are presented. Experimental results are provided for a quadrotor UAV to demonstrate the performance of the proposed control strategy.
ISSN:1552-3098
1941-0468
DOI:10.1109/TRO.2011.2163435