Image-based visual PID control of a micro helicopter using a stationary camera

This paper proposes an image-based visual servo control method for a micro helicopter. The helicopter does not have any sensors to measure its position or posture on the body. A stationary camera is placed on the ground and it obtains image features of the helicopter. The differences between current features and given reference features are computed. PID controllers then make control input voltages for helicopter control and they drive the helicopter. The proposed controller can avoid some major difficulties in computer vision such as numerical instability due to image noise or model uncertainties, since the reference is defined in the image frames. An experimental result demonstrates that the proposed controller can keep the helicopter in a stable hover. (C) Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and The Robotics Society of Japan, 2008.