Stability Analysis of a Vision-Based UAV Controller - An Application to Autonomous Road Following Missions

The stability analysis of a vision-based control strategy for a quad rotorcraft UAV is addressed. In the present application, the imaging sensing system provides the required states A. Ramírez · S. Mondié Department of Automatic Control, CINVESTAV IPN, Mexico D.F., Mexico A. Ramírez e-mail: [email protected] S. Mondié e-mail: [email protected] E. S. Espinoza (B) · A. García Laboratorio de Investigación en Robótica y Electrónica Avanzada, Polytechnic University of Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] A. García e-mail: [email protected] L. R. García Carrillo College of Science & Engineering, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. Lozano Laboratoire Heudiasyc, University of Technology of Compiègne, Compiègne, France R. Lozano The French Mexican Laboratory on Computer Science and Control LAFMIA-UMI CNRS 3175, CINVESTAV IPN, Mexico D.F., Mexico e-mail: [email protected] for performing autonomous navigation missions, however, it introduces latencies and time-delays from the time of capture to the time when measurements are available. To overcome this issue, a hierarchical controller is designed considering a time-scale separation between fast and slow dynamics. The dynamics of the fast-time system are stabilized using classical proportional derivative controllers. Additionally, delay frequency and time domain techniques are explored to design a controller for the slow-time system. Simulations and experimental results consisting on a visionbased road following task are presented.