Target Tracking by Flying Drone with Fixed Camera

This paper presents the software conception of a quadrotor UAV, named SKYWATCHER, which is able to follow a target. This capacity can at a long turn time permit to follow another drone and combine their performance in order to military missions for example.

From a low-cost architecture constructed by five students we implemented a software and added a camera to create a visual servoing. This project demonstrates the possibility to associate the technology of stabilization and the technology of visual enslavement.





References:
[1] Thesis of Celine Teuliere. « Approches deterministes et bayesiennes pour un suivi robuste: application a l'asservissement visuel d'un drone » soutenu en decembre 2010.
[2] Henry de Plinval (ONERA). « Asservissement visuel pour drones helicopteres ».
[3] Thesis of Ardabzgiir, «Design of control systems for a quadrotor flight vehicle equipped with inertial sensors» MecatroniqueDepartment, Atilim University.
[4] M. Chen, M. Huzmezan, «A combined MBPC/2 DOF Hoo controller for a quadrotor UAV», Universite de la Colombie-Britannique Vancouver.
[5] Amidi 0, Kanade T, Miller R. Vision-based autonomous helicopter research at Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute 1991-1997: Proceedings of American Helicopter Society International Conference, Gifu, Japan, Paper no. T73, 1998.
[6] Saripalli S, Montgomery J F, Sukhatme G S. Visually-guided landing of
an unmanned aerial vehicle (J). IEEE Transactions on Robotics and
Automation, 2003, 19: 371-380.
[7] Sharp C S, Shakenia O, Sastry S. A vision system for landing an
unmanned aerial vehicle: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference
on Robotics and Automation, Seoul, Korea, 2001.
[8] Jeffrey St. Clair, "Flying Blind. The Problem with the Predator,"
Counterpunch (October 30, 2001).
[9] OcéaneZubeldia, « L’armée française et l’utilisation des drones dans les
missions de reconnaissance, de 1960 au conflit du Kosovo », Revue
historique des armées, 261 | 2010, (En ligne), mis en ligne le 10
novembre 2010.