Many flying organisms operate near and transit over water as part of their natural life-cycle, yet currently man made aerial systems are fragile in this same environment as they rely almost exclusively on satellite navigation backed up by expensive inertial systems. In this study we developed a visual navigation technique that allows aerial systems to navigate above water surface environments, extending previous work on bio-inspired navigation over land. We demonstrate through flight experiments that limited knowledge of the local environment and visually identifiable information from the maritime surface is sufficient to achieve accurate ground track control over substantial distances under real world wind and water conditions.
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