Flexible vision-based navigation system for unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

A critical component of unmanned aerial vehicles in the navigation system which provides position and velocity feedback for autonomous control. The Georgia Tech Aerial Robotics navigational system (NavSys) consists of four DVTStinger70C Integrated Vision Units (IVUs) with CCD-based panning platforms, software, and a fiducial onboard the vehicle. The IVUs independently scan for the retro-reflective bar-code fiducial while the NavSys image processing software performs a gradient threshold followed by a image search localization of three vertical bar-code lines. Using the (x,y) image coordinate and CCD angle, the NavSys triangulates the fiducial's (x,y) position, differentiates for velocity, and relays the information to the helicopter controller, which independently determines the z direction with an onboard altimeter. System flexibility is demonstrated by recognition of different fiducial shapes, night and day time operation, and is being extended to on-board and off-board navigation of aerial and ground vehicles. The navigation design provides a real-time, inexpensive, and effective system for determining the (x,y) position of the aerial vehicle with updates generated every 51 ms (19.6 Hz) at an accuracy of approximately +/- 2.8 in.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.