Planar modeling of an actuated camera onboard a MAV

Abstract

This work presents the modeling and control of a multi-body air vehicle composed of a miniature aerial vehicle (MAV) and a camera positioner subsystem. The goal is to get an actuated system to freely position the camera in the space, disengaging dynamic couplings between the underactuated aircraft and the camera frame due to typical setups, to improve the current operational profile of visual sensors onboard MAVs. The Newton-Euler formalism is applied aiming to obtain coupling terms between the aerial and the camera positioner systems and a latter linearization is computed as a first approach for the control tasks. © 2015 Springer International Publishing.