Design and development of an on-board autonomous visual tracking system for unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

This paper proposes the design and development of an on-board autonomous visual tracking system (AVTS) for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). A prototype of the proposed system has been implemented in MATLAB/ Simulink for simulation purposes. The proposed system contains GPS/INS sensors, a gimbaled camera, a multi-level autonomous visual tracking algorithm, a ground stationary target (GST) or ground moving target (GMT) state estimator, a camera control algorithm, a UAV guidance algorithm, and an autopilot. The on-board multi-level autonomous visual tracking algorithm acquires the video frames from the on-board camera and calculates the GMT pixel position in the video frame. The on-board GMT state estimator receives the GMT pixel position from the multi-level autonomous visual tracking algorithm and estimates the current position and velocity of the GMT with respect to the UAV. The on-board non-linear UAV guidance law computes the UAV heading velocity rates and sends them to the autopilot to steer the UAV in the desired path. The on-board camera control law computes the control command and sends it to the camera's gimbal controller to keep the GMT in the camera's field of view. The UAV guidance law and camera control law have been integrated for continuous tracking of the GMT. The on-board autopilot is used for controlling the UAV trajectory. The simulation of the proposed system was tested with a flight simulator and the UAV's reaction to the GMT was observed. The simulated results prove that the proposed system tracks a GST or GMT effectively.

Keywords:

• autonomous visual tracking system
• aviator visual design simulator
• cam-shift algorithm
• extended Kalman filter estimator
• ground moving target
• ground stationary target
• mean-shift algorithm
• micro aerial vehicles
• unmanned aircraft systems
• unmanned aerial vehicles

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Narsimlu Kemsaram

Narsimlu KEMSARAM is currently pursuing a PhD degree from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNT University), Hyderabad, India. He has obtained a Master of Business Administration degree from Toulouse Business School (TBS), Toulouse, France and from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM Bangalore), India. He has also obtained a Master of Technology degree from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNT University), Hyderabad, India and a Bachelor of Technology degree from the National Institute of Technology Warangal (NIT Warangal), India. He is a life member of the Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI), a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Venkata Rajini Kanth Thatiparti

Venkata Rajini Kanth THATIPARTI. Dr obtained his PhD degree from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India in July 2008 and Master of Technology degree from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India in January 2001. His specialization area in research is spatial data mining. He obtained a PGDCS degree from University of Hyderabad (UoH), Hyderabad, India in 1996 and received an Master of Science (Applied Mathematics) degree in 1989 from Sri Venkatesvara University, Tirupati as a university ranker. He is working as a professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department, Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology (SNIST), Hyderabad, India.

Devendra Rao Guntupalli

Devendra Rao GUNTUPALLI. Dr is currently working as a Senior Vice President of Information Systems at Cyient Ltd (formerly known as Infotech Enterprises Ltd), Hyderabad, India. He obtained a PhD degree from the University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria in 1988 and a master’s degree from the same university in 1983. Prior to Cyient, he worked in OMC Computers Ltd from April 1989 to September 1994.

Anil Kuvvarapu

Anil KUVVARAPU has received a Bachelor of Technology degree in Computer Science and a Master of Technology degree in Software Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNT University), Hyderabad, India. He is pursuing his Master of Science in Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Michigan, USA. His research interests include cloud computing and data mining. He has been working as an assistant professor of Information Technologies at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNT University), Hyderabad, India and as a research assistant in Computer Science at UMF, USA.