Design, implementation and testing of a vision system for small unmanned vertical take off and landing vehicles with strict payload limitations
Alternative designs of a simple, low cost and effective vision system for small, portable, unmanned aerial vertical take off and landing (VTOL) vehicles are presented. Design configurations follow the 'on-board' and 'on-the-ground' processing concept and they depend on very strict payload limitations and power supply restrictions. Hardware and software components for both designs are described; advantages and disadvantages of both alternatives are compared; computational complexity is calculated and trade offs are discussed. Implementations on a series of small unmanned VTOL vehicles as well as testing details are included and experimental results are presented.
vertical take off and landing payload limitations on-board processing on-the-ground processing unmanned vehicles