A Dual UAV Docking System Based on Monocular Vision Ranging and Positioning

摘要

The dual UAV docking system is recently known as an important challenging task to improve the cruising ability of the multi-rotor UAV. In this paper, a mechanical structure of this system is illustrated. Monocular vision is adopted to identify the infrared beacons for the dual UAV charging positioning. The different effects of ultrasonic ranging and monocular vision ranging on this system are compared. Firstly, this system uses image processing to extract the characteristic values of the intercepts of the infrared beacon center and the actual position of the UAV, which are used to servo-control the movement of the horizontal position of the mother UAV. The ultrasonic distance measurement and the monocular visual distance measurement are utilized to obtain the height differences between two aircrafts to implement charging and positioning. When the mother UAV entering in the docking range, the grapnel of the mother UAV is locked at the child UAV's bayonet to complete the docking mission. The experiment on actual platform testing shows the different effects of two ranging methods on the robustness of the system. The experiment results are compared to verify the correctness and effectiveness of my proposed method.