Nonlinear dynamic image-based visual servoing of a quadrotor

This paper proposes a dynamic image-based visual servoing (IBVS) control law for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a single fixed on-board camera facing downward. The motion control problem is to regulate the relative lateral position of the vehicle to a stationary target located on the ground. The control law is termed dynamic as it is based on the dynamics and kinematics of the vehicle. The proposed design uses a nonlinear input-dependent change of state coordinates and its error dynamics are proven to be locally exponentially stable with an estimate provided for the region of attraction. Experimental and simulation results demonstrate the method’s ease of on-board implementation, performance, and robustness. The simulation and experimental results include a comparison with an established dynamic IBVS method. This comparison shows the proposed method can provide similar performance with the benefit of reduced complexity.