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Vision-less autonomous tracking and landing of a micro aerial vehicle on a slow maneuvering ground moving target using distance sensors

  • 1204: Multimedia Technology for Security and Surveillance in Degraded Vision
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Abstract

Camera and GPS technologies are often used in aerial vehicles for autonomous tracking and landing on ground moving vehicles. However, these technologies limit the accuracy of an aerial vehicle especially in critical landing situations. As a result, additional sensors may require to achieve higher precision specially while landing on slightly maneuvering target. This paper presents a novel approach for tracking and then smooth and accurate landing of a quadcopter on slow or non-maneuvering ground moving target. In the present approach, the quadcopter does not use camera or any other vision sensor which required heavy processing. The quadcopter is equipped with a rotating ultrasonic sensor which continuously senses the ground moving target in an open and obstacle free environment. The Euclidean distance between the initial positions of the quadcopter and the target were kept less than the range of the used ultrasonic sensor. The maximum velocity of the quadcopter is assumed faster than the target to ensure the target in the quadcopter’s sensing range during the operation. The performance of the quadcopter is observed in terms of the time taken and the distance travelled in tracking phase and landing phase. The simulation results are further verified by the hardware results in real-time environment.

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Abbreviations

UAV:

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

PNG:

Proportional Navigation Guidance

True PNG:

True Proportional Navigation Guidance

Pure PNG:

Pure Proportional Navigation Guidance

Ideal PNG:

Ideal Proportional Navigation Guidance

AIPNG:

Augmented Ideal Proportional Navigation Guidance

Modified AIPNG:

Modified Augmented Ideal Proportional Navigation Guidance

ATPNG:

Anticipated Trajectory based Proportional Navigation Guidance

AAG:

Angular Acceleration Guidance

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  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Kota, 302017, India

    Amit Kumar

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Correspondence to Amit Kumar.

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Kumar, A. Vision-less autonomous tracking and landing of a micro aerial vehicle on a slow maneuvering ground moving target using distance sensors. Multimed Tools Appl 81, 35261–35281 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-021-11860-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-021-11860-6

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