A stereo vision system for UAV guidance

  • Authors:

  • Richard J. D. Moore;Saul Thurrowgood;Daniel Bland;Dean Soccol;Mandyam V. Srinivasan

  • Affiliations:

  • Queensland Brain Institute & School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia and ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science, Austral ...;Queensland Brain Institute & School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia and ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science, Austral ...;Queensland Brain Institute & School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia and ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science, Austral ...;Queensland Brain Institute & School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia and ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science, Austral ...;Queensland Brain Institute & School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia and ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science, Austral ...

  • Venue:
  • IROS'09 Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ international conference on Intelligent robots and systems
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

This study describes a novel, vision-based system for guidance of UAVs. The system uses two cameras, each associated with a specially-shaped reflective surface, to obtain stereo information on the height above ground and the distances to potential obstacles. The camera-mirror system has the advantage that it remaps the world onto a cylindrical co-ordinate system that simplifies and speeds up range computations, and defines a collision-free cylinder through which the aircraft can pass without encountering obstacles. The result is a computationally efficient approach to vision-based aircraft guidance that is particularly suited to terrain and gorge following, obstacle avoidance, and landing. The feasibility of the system is demonstrated in laboratory and field tests.