Navigation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using Image Processing

• Main Author: Hasnain, Syed Saad
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för datavetenskap 2008
• Subjects: Navigation Image Processing; UAV Relative Position Estimation Absolute Position
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-105628

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the possibility of using aerial or satellite images or eventually digital elevation models in order to localize the UAV helicopter in the environment. Matching techniques are investigated in order to match the available on-board image of the area with the live images acquired by the on-board video camera. The problem is interesting because it can provide a redundancy for the UAV navigation system which is based only on GPS. The thesis is in the context of the development of an integrated system for navigation using image sequences from an aircraft. The system is composed of relative position estimation, which computes the current position of the helicopter by accumulating relative displacement extracted from successive aerial images. These successive aerial images are then matched using certain image matching techniques.