A Robust and Accurate Landing Methodology for Drones on Moving Targets

Abstract

This paper presents a framework for performing autonomous precise landing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on dynamic targets. The main goal of this work is to design the methodology and the controlling algorithms that will allow multi-rotor drones to perform a robust and efficient landing in dynamic conditions of changing wind, dynamic obstacles, and moving targets. Unlike existing GNSS-based vertical landing solutions, the suggested framework does not rely on global positioning and uses adaptive diagonal approaching angle visual landing. The framework was designed to work on existing camera-drone platforms, without any need for additional sensors, and it was implemented using DJI’s API on Android devices. The presented concept of visual sliding landing (VSL) was tested on a wide range of commercial drones, performing hundreds of precise and robust autonomous landings on dynamic targets, including boats, cars, RC-boats, and RC-rovers.