Flexible Flight Navigation for Quadcopters Based on Geometric Formation Using Motion Sensing

We propose a flexible flight navigation method for quadcopters; it offers stable and safe control based on the geometric constraint formed between markers on the quadcopter and target markers. The 3D motions of the target markers simulate another quadcopter. Our method uses a motion capture system to extract the 3D positions of the markers. According to the detected 3D positions, it calculates translation motion and rotation motion to navigate the quadcopter via feedback control so that these markers form a rectangle in 3D space. We demonstrate flight trials by a prototype based on an AR.Drone and a motion capture system. Our experiments confirm that our method offers good flight navigation for quadcopter.