Flight test bed for visual tracking of small UAVs

This paper describes the development of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system, which will be used to demonstrate multiple-vehicle flight control algorithms. Planned demonstrations include vehicle coordination experiments involving autonomous air, ground, and marine vehicles. More immediately, a system of two UAVs will be used to demonstrate adaptive visual tracking algorithms. To speed development time, critical hardware such as the aircraft autopilots and self-stabilizing gimballed camera system are purchased commercially. These systems are being installed in a commonly available hobby industry airframe. This paper describes component selection and high-level integration and results from early flight tests. The paper also describes the vision-based target tracking algorithm to be demonstrated using this system.