Vision-Based Mobile Robotic Platform for Autonomous Landing of Quadcopters

This project deals with the development of a vision-based control algorithm to assist quadcopters in the landing process. For demonstration purposes, the approach has been implemented in a mobile robotic platform (turtlebot). In this project, the objective is to use the mobile robot as a landing platform. The camera on-board the mobile robot detects the quadcopter (AprilTag attached to the flying robot) and keeps track of it. Based on this idea, the proposed approach estimates in real-time the landing zone. Once this zone is calculated, the mobile robot moves towards this area, stops under the quadcopter, and acts as a landing pad. Similarly, this approach can be implemented on the quadcopter to autonomously help in its landing process. The system does not only see possible usage in defense and protection of military combatants, but also in further development of communications systems between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and other robotics systems