Omnidirectional Vision for an Autonomous Helicopter

S. Hrabar, and G. Sukhatme

Abstract

We have presented the design and implementation of a sideways-looking sensor for an autonomous helicopter using an omnidirectional vision system. The effectiveness of the system was demonstrated by completing a visual servoing task that required a number of features to be identified simultaneously within a large field of view in the environment. Data from several experiments show that the task was completed successfully on a ground based robot. It was shown that the vision system and centroid finding algorithm could generate appropriate control commands when tested on a pilot-controlled model helicopter.

Reference

S. Hrabar, and G. Sukhatme, "Omnidirectional Vision for an Autonomous Helicopter", In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 558 - 563, 2003.

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