Multi-UAV Binocular Intersection With One-Shot Communication: Modeling and Algorithms

Abstract

Binocular intersection is practically indispensable for stereo visual systems that extract 3D information from images of two distinct cameras. This paper proposes a multi-UAV binocular intersection approach where the two distinct cameras are fixed separately on multiple flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), rather than physically connected with each other as in the pre-existing works. Eventually, both modeling and algorithms are developed for the multi-UAV binocular intersection with extremely limited communication. As the formulated model states, once one flying vehicle detects the target and shares related information only in a one-shot manner, the other vehicles steer their pan-tilt units (PTUs) to reconstruct a spatial binocular intersection automatically. The binocular intersection algorithm is further improved from two aspects to maximize the probability of target capture. On one hand, the search scope is narrowed by developing an iterative algorithm with priori terrain height and variance. On the other hand, an approaching navigation law is designed to reduce view occlusion caused by terrain. Extensive simulations with different target speeds and flight altitudes are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the probability of binocular intersection is over 90% and is subject to little fluctuation against episodic parameter changes. Furthermore, the developed algorithms are verified localization-free and time-saving as well, and hereafter are potentially practicable for micro aerial swarm applications with extremely limited onboard computation and communication.