Visual Tracking and Control of a Quadrocopter

The main goal of this master thesis project was to take a manually controlled consumer quality quadrocopter and build the foundations which allows it to be autonomously controlled. This was achieved by introducing a exterior frame of reference through the use of a webcam coupled with image analysis algorithms. The position and rotation of the quadrocopter was identified, and several control structures were implemented and tested, which allowed the quadrocopter to be commanded to move to positions in space. Both the onboard ultrasound sensor, and an altitude estimation through image analysis were used to control the altitude of the quadrocopter. Position control in x, y and orientation (yaw rotation) completely relied on data extracted and analysed from the video stream. Control of velocity along a predefined trajectory was also successfully implemented, which enables future development of an obstacle avoiding path planner. Lastly, the master thesis also covers work carried out at ABB’s Strategic R&D department for oil, gas and petrochemicals i Oslo, Norway. Here the focus was on using a quadrocopter to track and follow the motion of an industrial robot by analysing the video stream of the onboard camera