PIXHAWK: A micro aerial vehicle design for autonomous flight using onboard computer vision

We describe a novel quadrotor micro air vehicle (MAV) system that is designed to use computer vision algorithms within the flight control loop. One main contribution is the integration of a powerful onboard computer which is a necessity for running state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms with real-time constraints. The system also features IMU-Vision synchronization by hardware time stamping which allows tight integration of IMU measurements into the computer vision pipeline. We describe visual pose estimation from artificial markers and stereo vision integration for obstacle detection. The control architecture is tested in autonomous flights using onboard computed visual position estimates. In experiments and measurements, we show the benefits of our IMU-Vision synchronization for egomotion estimation, demonstrate autonomous flight and stereo vision obstacle detection.