Conference Publication

J. Pestana, J. L. Sanchez-Lopez, S. Saripalli, P. Campoy. Vision based GPS-denied Object tracking and Following for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR). IEEE. pp. 1-6. Print ISBN: 978-1-4799-0879-0. Online ISBN: 978-1-4799-0880-6. DOI: 10.1109/SSRR.2013.6719359.

Resources:

Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1109/SSRR.2013.6719359
Bibtex citation: Bibtex

Best Paper Award Finalist

Abstract:
We present a vision based control strategy for tracking and following objects using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. We have developed an image based visual servoing method that uses only a forward looking camera for tracking and following objects from a multi-rotor UAV, without any dependence on GPS systems. Our proposed method tracks a user specified object continuously while maintaining a fixed distance from the object and also simultaneously keeping it in the center of the image plane. The algorithm is validated using a Parrot AR Drone 2.0 in outdoor conditions while tracking and following people, occlusions and also fast moving objects; showing the robustness of the proposed systems against perturbations and illumination changes. Our experiments show that the system is able to track a great variety of objects present in suburban areas, among others: people, windows, AC machines, cars and plants.

Dr. Jose-Luis SANCHEZ-LOPEZ