Quadcopter control using onboard monocular camera for enriching remote laboratory facilities

Abstract

We present the implementation of a visual localization and control system of a low cost quadcopter for an application in a remote electronic laboratory. The issues addressed are: environment exploration in remote laboratories, autonomous visual inspection of planar objects, and autonomous homing and landing. The localization system is composed of two complementary visual approaches: (i) a visual SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) system, and (ii) a homography-based localization system. We extend the application scenarios of the first system by allowing close range inspection of a planar electrical instrument and autonomous landing. Experiments conducted in a remote laboratory workspace are presented. They prove the performance of the proposed system in terms of real-time and robustness.