Vision-Based Algorithm for Autonomous Aerial Landing

The landing phase is a critical stage in autonomous aerial landing, especially when the aerial vehicle lands in a moving platform, as ground vehicles. In this paper, a solution combining the information from the onboard camera of the drone with an observer is used to estimate and predict the future position of the landing platform. This landing estimation is used in the control algorithm, based on quaternions, for generating and tracking a landing trajectory. The proposed solution is then validated in real-time experiments (two scenarios) to demonstrate the well performance and efficiency of the closed-loop system. Main graphs from these experiments are reported in this paper. Moreover, as this work aims to set the base for future developments, existing limitations from this work are discussed in the last section.