Paper Info
Title
A Hierarchical Tracking Strategy for Vision-Based Applications On-Board UAVs
Abstract
In this paper, we apply a hierarchical tracking strategy of planar objects (or that can be assumed to be planar) that is based on direct methods for vision-based applications on-board UAVs. The use of this tracking strategy allows to achieve the tasks at real-time frame rates and to overcome problems posed by the challenging conditions of the tasks: e.g. constant vibrations, fast 3D changes, or limited capacity on-board. The vast majority of approaches make use of feature-based methods to track objects. Nonetheless, in this paper we show that although some of these feature-based solutions are faster, direct methods can be more robust under fast 3D motions (fast changes in position), some changes in appearance, constant vibrations (without requiring any specific hardware or software for video stabilization), and situations in which part of the object to track is outside of the field of view of the camera. The performance of the proposed tracking strategy on-board UAVs is evaluated with images from real-flight tests using manually-generated ground truth information, accurate position estimation using a Vicon system, and also with simulated data from a simulation environment. Results show that the hierarchical tracking strategy performs better than well-known feature-based algorithms and well-known configurations of direct methods, and that its performance is robust enough for vision-in-the-loop tasks, e.g. for vision-based landing tasks.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1007/s10846-013-9814-x
Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems
Keywords
DocType
Volume
UAVs visual tracking,Direct methods,Vision-based landing,Pose estimation,Hierarchical tracking
Journal
72
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
3-4
0921-0296
10
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.61
23
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Carol Martínez1493.19
Iván Fernando Mondragón217416.03
Pascual Campoy343646.75
Jose Luis Sanchez-Lopez410510.32
Miguel Olivares513111.35