INTELLIGENT LANDING SYSTEM FOR LANDING UAVS AT UNSURVEYED AIRFIELDS

摘要

Autonomous UAV technology is currently limited in its ability to land safely at alternate airfields that have not been accurately surveyed and where differential GPS is unavailable. This paper presents flight-test results of a new system that is capable of autonomously recovering a UAV to a previously unvisited airfield. The system utilizes a priori location information of airfields (for example ERSA, which provides the location of the airfield to approximately 100 m) to decide which airfield is the most feasible for landing. When the aircraft reaches the vicinity of the airfield it uses an onboard gimbaled camera to provide a precise vision-aided landing.