Autonomous landing of an UAV on a moving platform using Model Predictive Control

This paper proposes a linear Model Predictive Control (MPC) for high-accuracy tracking of a mobile robotic platform, in an indoor environment. The mission is divided into three main phases: target detection, target tracking and autonomous lading. These phases were coded into a so-called guidance function, which allows the system to safely switch between different reference signals according to the state of the mission. In order to ease the control loop implementation in the experimental framework available at the facilities of ISAE Supaero, some existing optimisation tools were employed. In addition, some simulations and real tests were carried out to demonstrate the performance of the controller against other control techniques developed for the same experimental system

Aerial Vehicles

This book contains 35 chapters written by experts in developing techniques for making aerial vehicles more intelligent, more reliable, more flexible in use, and safer in operation.It will also serve as an inspiration for further improvement of the design and application of aeral vehicles. The advanced techniques and research described here may also be applicable to other high-tech areas such as robotics, avionics, vetronics, and space

Autonomous Vision Based Facial and voice Recognition on the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

The development of human navigation and tracking in the real time environment will lead to the implementation of more advanced tasks that can performed by the autonomous robots. That means, we proposed new intelligent algorithm for human identification using difficult of facial and speech which can substantially improve the rate of recognition as compared to the biometric identification for Robust system development. This project system that can recognize face using Eigenface recognizer with Principal component analysis (PCA) and human voice using the Hidden Markov Model(HMM) and. Also in this paper, combinations of algorithms such as modified Eigenface, Haar-Cascade classifier, PCA and HMM resulted in a more robust system for facial and speech recognition. The proposed system was implemented on AR drone 2.0 using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 platform together with EmguCV. The testing of the proposed system carried out in an indoor environment in order to evaluate its performance in terms of detection distance, angle of detection, and accuracy of detection. 500 images of different people were used for face recognition at detection distances. The best average result of 92.22% was obtained at a detection

Vision-Based Autonomous Landing of a Quadrotor on the Perturbed Deck of an Unmanned Surface Vehicle

Autonomous landing on the deck of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) is still a major challenge for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In this paper, a fiducial marker is located on the platform so as to facilitate the task since it is possible to retrieve its six-degrees of freedom relative-pose in an easy way. To compensate interruption in the marker’s observations, an extended Kalman filter (EKF) estimates the current USV’s position with reference to the last known position. Validation experiments have been performed in a simulated environment under various marine conditions. The results confirmed that the EKF provides estimates accurate enough to direct the UAV in proximity of the autonomous vessel such that the marker becomes visible again. Using only the odometry and the inertial measurements for the estimation, this method is found to be applicable even under adverse weather conditions in the absence of the global positioning system

A review of autonomous docking technologies for an unmanned aircraft carrier

Aerial carrier is becoming a hotspot in Remote Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) research area recently. As a variant of the general RPAS swarm, this technology is believed to be promising in both military and civilian applications. For example, it could enhance the safety of a military surveillance mission, it could enlarge the surveillance region coverage and it could extend the communication range of any single RPAS. One essential problem for the realisation of the aerial carrier is the autonomous docking in the air. This paper presents a review of autonomous docking techniques ranging from active LED recognition to passive laser scanning and three-dimensional (3D) remodelling. It is aimed at providing a broad perspective on the statues of the recognition and position estimation problems

On Collaborative Aerial and Surface Robots for Environmental Monitoring of Water Bodies

Part 8: Robotics and ManufacturingInternational audienceRemote monitoring is an essential task to help maintaining Earth ecosystems. A notorious example is the monitoring of riverine environments. The solution purposed in this paper is to use an electric boat (ASV - Autonomous Surface Vehicle) operating in symbiosis with a quadrotor (UAV – Unmanned Air Vehicle). We present the architecture and solutions adopted and at the same time compare it with other examples of collaborative robotics systems, in what we expected could be used as a survey for other persons doing collaborative robotics systems. The architecture here purposed will exploit the symbiotic partnership between both robots by covering the perception, navigation, coordination, and integration aspects

Visual Servoing Approach for Autonomous UAV Landing on a Moving Vehicle

We present a method to autonomously land an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle on a moving vehicle with a circular (or elliptical) pattern on the top. A visual servoing controller approaches the ground vehicle using velocity commands calculated directly in image space. The control laws generate velocity commands in all three dimensions, eliminating the need for a separate height controller. The method has shown the ability to approach and land on the moving deck in simulation, indoor and outdoor environments, and compared to the other available methods, it has provided the fastest landing approach. It does not rely on additional external setup, such as RTK, motion capture system, ground station, offboard processing, or communication with the vehicle, and it requires only a minimal set of hardware and localization sensors. The videos and source codes can be accessed from http://theairlab.org/landing-on-vehicle.Comment: 24 page