Visual aid for unmanned aircraft navigation in unknown environments


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Uzun S. S., Söken H. E.

12th International Conference on Innovation in Aviation and Space for Opening New Horizons, EASN 2022, Barcelona, Spain, 18 - 21 October 2022, vol.2526 identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Full Text
  • Volume: 2526
  • Doi Number: 10.1088/1742-6596/2526/1/012090
  • City: Barcelona
  • Country: Spain
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

This study presents a visual-aided inertial navigation technique that can be used for unmanned aircraft in unknown environments. An angular and linear velocity estimation algorithm, which is based on the solution of the Wahba's problem, is developed using sequential images for visual odometry. It is possible that the visual sensors do not receive continuous measurements throughout the mission, for example, when a sufficient number of features cannot be detected by the camera. Considering that a closed loop Extended Kalman Filter algorithm is designed for integration of visual odometry measurements with the inertial measurements to have accurate pose estimation throughout the flight.