期刊名称：International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
印刷版ISSN：1729-8806
电子版ISSN：1729-8814
出版年度：2014
卷号：11
DOI：10.5772/58989
语种：English
出版社：SAGE Publications
摘要：This paper presents a framework for tracking a mobile ground target (MGT) using a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Challenges from pure theories to practical applications, including varying illumination, computational limits and a lack of clarity are considered. The procedure consists of four steps, namely: target detection, target localization, states estimation and UAV guidance. Firstly, the MGT in the wild is separated from the background using a Laplacian operator-based method. Next, the MGT is located by performing coordinate transformations with the assumption that the altitude of the ground is invariant and known. Afterwards, a Kalman filter is used to estimate the location and velocity of the MGT. Finally, a modified guidance law is developed to guide the UAV to circle and track the MGT. The performance of our framework is validated by simulations and a number of actual flight tests. The results indicate that the framework is effective and of low computational complexity, and in particular our modified guidance law can reduce the error of the tracking distance by about 75% in specified situations. With the proposed framework, such challenges caused by the actual system can be tackled effectively, and the fixed-wing UAV can track the MGT stably.
