A Two-Step Controller for Vision-Based Autonomous Landing of a Multirotor with a Gimbal Camera

Abstract

This article presents a novel vision-based autonomous landing method utilizing a multirotor and a gimbal camera, which is designed to be applicable from any initial position within a broad space by addressing the problems of a field of view and singularity to ensure stable performance. The proposed method employs a two-step controller based on integrated dynamics for the multirotor and the gimbal camera, where the multirotor approaches the landing site horizontally in the first step and descends vertically in the second step. The multirotor and the camera converge simultaneously to the desired configuration because we design the stabilizing controller for the integrated dynamics of the multirotor and the gimbal camera. The controller requires only one feature point and decreases unnecessary camera rolling. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through simulation and real environment experiments.