Precision Landing Test and Simulation of the Agricultural UAV on Apron

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been used to assist agricultural production. Precision landing control of UAV is critical for application of it in some specific areas such as greenhouses or livestock/poultry houses. For controlling UAV landing on a fixed or mobile apron/platform accurately, this study proposed an automatic method and tested it under three scenarios: (1) UAV landing at high operating altitude based on the GPS signal of the mobile apron; (2) UAV landing at low operating altitude based on the image recognition on the mobile apron; and (3) UAV landing progress control based on the fixed landing device and image detection to achieve a stable landing action. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control method, apron at both stationary and mobile (e.g., 3 km/h moving speed) statuses were tested. Besides, a simulation was conducted for the UAV landing on a fixed apron by using a commercial poultry house as a model (135 L × 15 W × 3 H m). Results show that the average landing errors in high altitude and low altitude can be controlled within 6.78 cm and 13.29 cm, respectively. For the poultry house simulation, the landing errors were 6.22 ± 2.59 cm, 6.79 ± 3.26 cm, and 7.14 ± 2.41cm at the running speed of 2 km/h, 3 km/h, and 4 km/h, respectively. This study provides the basis for applying the UAV in agricultural facilities such as poultry or animal houses where requires a stricter landing control than open fields.