Carrier Phase GPS and Computer Vision for Control of an Autonomous Helicopter

Bruce R. Woodley, Henry L. Jones II, Edward A. LeMaster, Stephen M. Rock

Abstract:	The Stanford University Aerospace Robotics Lab (ARL) has developed a fully autonomous hoverable unmanned air vehicle (HUAV) which uses differen- tial carrier phase GPS (DCPGPS) as the only sen- sor for both control and navigation. Precision au- tonomous operation in a structured environment has been demonstrated at the 1995 Aerial Robotics Com- petition, where the ARL helicopter demonstrated re- trieval and transportation of 4 oz objects around a small field. The ARL has experimentally demonstrated the advan- tages of combining differential carrier phase GPS for high-bandwidth vehicle control with computer vision to enable the operation of an unmanned, autonomous helicopter in a dynamic unstructured environment. DCPGPS techniques and conventional control meth- ods are used to close a short-period inner loop, stabi- lizing the helicopter’s dynamics and providing a global navigation system. An outer loop is closed using feed- back from the vision system to determine the precise location of the ground and other objects in the envi- ronment. This paper examines the combination of differential carrier phase GPS and computer vision techniques to enable an autonomous vehicle to operate in unstruc- tured environments. Experimental results are pre- sented and future work is discussed.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 9th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1996) September 17 - 20, 1996 Kansas City, MO
Pages:	461 - 465
Cite this article:	Woodley, Bruce R., Jones, Henry L., II, LeMaster, Edward A., Rock, Stephen M., "Carrier Phase GPS and Computer Vision for Control of an Autonomous Helicopter," Proceedings of the 9th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1996), Kansas City, MO, September 1996, pp. 461-465.
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