Vision Based Control of Rotary Wing Vehicles

The work presented in this paper is intended as an introduction to a study being carried out at the University of Bristol in conjunction with the SEAS DTC and forms the basis for a PhD in aerospace engineering. The focus of the research is the design of control systems for small unmanned rotary wing vehicles which receive feedback signals from visual sensory devices to augment controllability. Over the course of the work, three experiments are planned in 1, 2 and 6 degrees of freedom in order to incrementally increase the demands on the visual control system and develop an in depth understanding of the Taleos vision system, supplied by BAE Systems, to be used. To date, 1 degree of freedom experiments have been carried out and have demonstrated the potential for using vision for control. The work has now been extended to 2 degrees of freedom, with the theoretical simulation of an appropriately restrained helicopter. Future work is planned based on the 2 degree of freedom simulations and extension to this is planned in the form of a 6 degree of freedom demonstration model.