Autonomous Quadcopter Landing on a Moving Target

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Computer Vision
• Control Systems

Background:

• Autonomous landing on moving targets presents significant challenges due to external disturbances and localization inaccuracies.
• Traditional vertical landing methods often lack the speed and precision required for dynamic scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a novel vision-based guidance technique for autonomous landing on moving targets.
• To enhance landing accuracy and speed compared to conventional approaches.

Main Methods:

• A vision system combining color segmentation and AprilTags for landing pad detection without prior target information.
• Implementation of a pure pursuit guidance law integrated with a log polynomial closing velocity controller.
• Validation through extensive simulations and field experiments with a moving landing target.

Main Results:

• The proposed system demonstrated faster and more accurate landings than traditional methods in simulations and field tests.
• Successful landing achieved in 22 out of 27 field experiment runs.
• Maximum landing error of 35 cm from the target center for successful landings.

Conclusions:

• The vision-based guidance technique with a log polynomial closing velocity controller is effective for autonomous landing on moving targets.
• The system shows robustness against target movement and external disturbances.
• This approach offers a promising solution for applications requiring precise autonomous landings in dynamic environments.