Abstract
This paper describes the results of a study focused on the evaluation of the performance of specific algorithms for the “point matching” task within the general problem of applying machine vision-based control laws for the problem of aerial refueling (AR) for UAVs. Two different point matching algorithms for the identification of the corner-points of the tanker are proposed. A detailed study of the algorithms is performed with special emphasis on the correct matching and required computational effort. The results show the importance of a correct point-matching scheme for obtaining accurate pose estimation; furthermore, the analysis highlights the tradeoffs involved in the selection of the appropriate algorithms.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Image Processing Toolbox version 5.2, The Mathworks. http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/toolbox/images/, March 2006
Ansar, A., Dniilidis, K.: Linear Pose estimation from Points or Lines. In: Heyden, A. et al. (eds.) ECCV, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 2002, vol. 4, pp. 282–296. Springer, New York
Branca, A., Stella, E., Distante, A.: Feature matching by searching maximum clique on high order association graph. iciap, p. 642. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing (ICIAP’99) (1999)
Campa, G., Mammarella, M., Napolitano, M.R., Fravolini, M.L., Pollini, L.: Addressing pose estimation issues for machine vision based UAV autonomous aerial refueling. In: Proceedings of the 14th Mediterranean Control Conference, Ancona, Italy, June 28–30 (2006)
Fravolini, M.L., Campa, G., Ficola, A., Napolitano, M.R., Seanor, B.: Modeling and control issues for machine vision-based autonomous aerial refueling for UAVs. AIAA J. Guid. Control Dyn. (submitted), April (2005)
Fravolini, M.L., Campa, G., Napolitano, M.R., Ficola, A.: Evaluation of machine vision algorithms for autonomous aerial refueling for unmanned aerial vehicles. AIAA J. Aerosp. Comput. Inform. Commun. (submitted), January (2006)
Fravolini M.L., Ficola A., Campa G., Napolitano M.R., Seanor B.: Modeling and control issues for autonomous aerial refueling for UAVs Using a Probe–Drogue refueling system. J. Aerosp. Sci. Technol. 8(7), 611–618 (2004)
Haralick R.M. et al.: Pose estimation from corresponding point data. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. 19(6), 1426–1446 (1989)
Harris, C., Stephens, M.: A combined corner and edge detector. In: Proceedings of the 4th Alvey Vision Conference, Manchester, pp. 147–151 (1988)
Hutchinson S., Hager G., Corke P.: A tutorial on visual servo control. IEEE. Trans. Rob. Autom. 12(5), 651–670 (1996)
Kenney C.S., Manjunath B.S., Zuliani M., Hewer G.A., Van Nevel A.: A condition number for point matching with application to registration and postregistration error estimation. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 25(11), 1437–1454 (2003)
Kimmett, J., Valasek, J., Junkins, J.L.: Autonomous aerial refueling utilizing a vision based navigation system. In: Proceedings of the 2002 AIAA GNC Conference, Paper 2002-5569, Monterey (CA), August (2002)
Korbly R., Sensong L.: Relative attitudes for automatic docking. AIAA J. Guid. Control Dyn. 6(3), 213–215 (1983)
Lu C.P., Hager G.D., Mjolsness E.: Fast and globally convergent pose estimation from video images. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 22(6), 610–622 (2000)
Noble A.: Finding corners. Image Vis. Comput. J. 6(2), 121–128 (1988)
Philip N.K., Ananthasayanam M.R.: Relative position and attitude estimation and control schemes for the final phase of an autonomous docking mission of spacecraft. Acta Astronaut. 52, 511–522 (2003)
Pla F., Marchant J.A.: Matching feature points in image sequences through a region-based method. Comput. Vis. Image Underst. 66(3), 271–285 (1997)
Sinopoli, B., Micheli, M., Donato, G., Koo, T.J.: Vision based navigation for an unmanned aerial vehicle. iN: Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, vol. 2, pp. 1757–1764, Seoul, South Korea, May (2001)
Vendra S., Campa G., Napolitano M.R., Mammarella M., Fravolini M.L., Perhinschi M.G.: Addressing corner detection issues for machine vision based UAV aerial refueling. Mach. Vis. Appl. 18(5), 261–273 (2007)
Wilson W.: Visual servo control of robots using Kalman filter estimates of robot pose relative to work-pieces. In: Hashimoto, K.(eds) Visual Servoing, pp. 71–104. World Scientific, Singapore (1994)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mammarella, M., Campa, G., Napolitano, M.R. et al. Comparison of point matching algorithms for the UAV aerial refueling problem. Machine Vision and Applications 21, 241–251 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00138-008-0149-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00138-008-0149-8