Visual servoing of a moving target by an unmanned aerial vehicle

Ching Wen Chen, Hsin Ai Hung, Po Hung Yang, Teng Hu Cheng*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

To track moving targets undergoing unknown translational and rotational motions, a tracking controller is developed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The main challenges are to control both the relative position and orientation between the target and the UAV to within desired values, and to guarantee that the generated control input to the UAV is feasible (i.e., below its motion capability). Moreover, the UAV is controlled to ensure that the target always remains within the field of view of the onboard camera. These control objectives were achieved by developing a nonlinearmodel predictive controller, in which the future motion of the target is predicted by quadratic programming (QP). Since constraints of the feature vector and the control input are considered when solving the optimal control problem, the control inputs can be bounded and the target can remain inside the image. Three simulations were performed to compare the efficacy and performance of the developed controller with a traditional image-based visual servoing controller.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5708
JournalSensors
Volume21
Issue number17
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2021

Keywords

  • Estimation
  • Quadratic programming
  • Tracking of moving targets
  • UAV
  • Unscented kalman filter

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