Scheme Design and Experiment Verification for Multiple Quadrotors with the Monocular Camera to Track Ground Moving Targets

Abstract

An overall scheme is designed for multiple quadrotors to track moving targets on the ground in this paper. The hardware system of the scheme includes a quadrotor equipped with a monocular camera, a low-cost onboard computer, a communication module, and a PIXHAWK autopilot. Four tasks are executed in order by multiple quadrotors in the scheme: autonomous takeoff, flying to the target area, target detection and tracking, and return. To fulfill these tasks, formation control protocol and moving target detection and tracking algorithm are designed in the scheme. Furthermore, the target detection and tracking algorithm is coupled tightly with the quadrotor controller to track the moving targets smoothly. Finally, to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed scheme, flight experiments are conducted for multiple quadrotors to detect and track ground moving targets.