Design and Implementation of Autonomous Takeoff and Landing UAV System for USV Platform

EasyChair Preprint 8548

Abstract

In order to realize the autonomous takeoff and landing function of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on the unmanned surface vehicle (USV) platform to improve the operation capability of the UAV in wide waters, this paper proposes a phased takeoff and landing method and designs a corresponding hardware system, which is mainly an UAV system and an USV platform system. The UAV system designed in this paper is equipped with a flight control board, infrared thermal imaging module, takeoff and landing harpoon device, non-differential global positioning system (GPS) and wireless digital transmission. The equipped infrared thermal imaging sensor is used as the accurate position data feedback at a closer distance from the USV platform, which uses the visual processing method to accurately identify the location of the positive temperature coefficient (PTC) heat source in the center of the USV and feed it to the UAV. The non-differential GPS is used for position data feedback at longer distances, and the landing harpoon device is used to fix the UAV on the landing net to prevent the UAV from tipping over due to small shaking of the USV platform. The USV system is equipped with a landing net, a PTC heat source, and a 4G communication module and a 2.4G communication module. Finally, the experimental verification of the autonomous takeoff and landing system in this paper was conducted. The designed system can realize the autonomous takeoff and landing function of the UAV on the USV platform, and can complete the landing when the USV platform moves at 25cm/s and its attitude angle sway is less than 10 degrees, and complete the takeoff when the USV platform moves at 50cm/s.

Keyphrases: Autonomous Takeoff and Landing, Tracking, UAV, USV, infrared thermal imaging

@booklet{EasyChair:8548,
  author    = {Beizhen Feng and Xiaofei Yang and Ronghao Wang and Xin Yan and Hongwei She and Liang Shan},
  title     = {Design and Implementation of Autonomous Takeoff and Landing UAV System for USV Platform},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 8548},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2022}}