UAV Control on the Basis of 3D Landmark Bearing-Only Observations

Sensors (Basel). 2015 Nov 27;15(12):29802-20. doi: 10.3390/s151229768.

Abstract

The article presents an approach to the control of a UAV on the basis of 3D landmark observations. The novelty of the work is the usage of the 3D RANSAC algorithm developed on the basis of the landmarks' position prediction with the aid of a modified Kalman-type filter. Modification of the filter based on the pseudo-measurements approach permits obtaining unbiased UAV position estimation with quadratic error characteristics. Modeling of UAV flight on the basis of the suggested algorithm shows good performance, even under significant external perturbations.

Keywords: UAV; control; feature points; modified Kalman filter; projective geometry; video stream; visual odometry.