Autonomous approach and landing for a low-cost quadrotor using monocular cameras

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a monocular vision system for approach and landing using a low-cost micro aerial vehicle (MAV). The system enables an off-the-shelf Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 quadrotor MAV to autonomously detect a landpad, approach it, and land on it. Particularly, we exploit geometric properties of a circular landpad marker in order to estimate the exact flight distance between the quadrotor and the landing spot. We then employ monocular simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) to fly towards the landpad while accurately following a trajectory. Notably, our system does not require the landpad to be located directly underneath the MAV.