A Novel UAV Visual Positioning Algorithm Based on A-YOLOX

Abstract

The application of UAVs is becoming increasingly extensive. However, high-precision autonomous landing is still a major industry difficulty. The current algorithm is not well-adapted to light changes, scale transformations, complex backgrounds, etc. To address the above difficulties, a deep learning method was here introduced into target detection and an attention mechanism was incorporated into YOLOX; thus, a UAV positioning algorithm called attention-based YOLOX (A-YOLOX) is proposed. Firstly, a novel visual positioning pattern was designed to facilitate the algorithm’s use for detection and localization; then, a UAV visual positioning database (UAV-VPD) was built through actual data collection and data augmentation and the A-YOLOX model detector developed; finally, corresponding high- and low-altitude visual positioning algorithms were designed for high- and low-altitude positioning logics. The experimental results in the actual environment showed that the AP50 of the proposed algorithm could reach 95.5%, the detection speed was 53.7 frames per second, and the actual landing error was within 5 cm, which meets the practical application requirements for automatic UAV landing.