IBVS of a rotary wing UAV using line features

We present an image-based visual servoing (IBVS) control scheme which can be used for inspecting power lines using rotary wing UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). The control method tracks parallel lines using a virtual camera which is attached to the actual camera but has no roll or pitch displacement. We propose a set of image features from the projected lines on the virtual camera image plane. Based on the features’ interaction matrix an IBVS control law is developed. This proposed scheme is robust to camera calibration errors and does not require depth estimation. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the performance of the approach