Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have found widespread applications in various fields and scenarios, prompting extensive research on their formation control and route planning. However, in extreme application scenarios such as complex electromagnetic battlefields, existing studies often rely on radio frequency communication for data exchange between UAVs or utilize external sensors like GPS for positioning, which are susceptible to interference. To address this, we propose a method for distributed formation control of UAVs that solely relies on visual and inertial data, without data exchange between UAVs or the use of external positioning sensors like GPS. Drawing inspiration from the flight formations of migratory birds, our approach employs cameras to detect the orientations of neighboring UAVs. A simulation environment is constructed using a game engine to train a YOLO object detection network for reliable detection of other UAVs. Sub-sequently, utilizing geometric relationships, the positions of UAVs in the formation coordinate system are calculated, and our proposed formation control algorithm is applied to adjust the UAVs to their desired formation positions. Moreover, we employ the SIFT object detection algorithm to match images from the downward-facing camera of the UAV to satellite maps for obtaining global coordinates. Our introduced randomized navigator election algorithm selects a leading UAV for guiding the formation with higher accuracy along the intended route. Through simulation experiments, we demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves comparable accuracy to traditional methods in most scenarios, while exhibiting strong robustness.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    A Vision-Only Drone Formation Waypoint Navigation Method


    Contributors:
    Zhang, Changhao (author) / Xiu, Zengqi (author) / Hu, Boxuan (author) / Pan, Yuyi (author)


    Publication date :

    2024-11-15


    Size :

    3454759 byte




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Waypoint navigation

    CARLSSON CARL-OLOF / ADEBJÖRK PETER | European Patent Office | 2018

    Free access

    Forum - Waypoint Navigation for Rivercraft?

    Breedveld, D. | Online Contents | 1999


    Waypoint Navigation Using Exclusion Zones

    B. Jones / C. Shaw / J. Hills | NTIS | 1995


    Waypoint Navigation Using Exclusion Zones

    G. B. Jones / C. Shaw / S. J. Hills | NTIS | 1995


    Area navigation waypoint designation standards

    Adams, R.I. | Tema Archive | 1974