Automatic take off, hovering and landing control for miniature helicopters with low-cost onboard hardware

Abstract

This paper details experiments for autonomous take off, hovering above a landing place and autonomous landing. Our visual tracking approach differs from other methods by using an inexpensive Wii remote camera, i.e., commodity consumer hardware. All processing is done with an onboard microcontroller and the system does not require stationary sensors. The only requirements are a stationary pattern of four infrared spots at the start and landing site and a roll and pitch attitude estimation of sufficient quality, provided by an separate inertial measurement unit.