A Bio-inspired Approach for UAV Landing and Perching

This paper describes a bio-inspired flight trajectory planning method for a UAV to approach to a target for landing and perching. It also presents the control strategy for a quadrotor UAV to track the desired flight trajectory. The desired flight trajectory is developed based on the bio-behavioral Tau theory which was established from studying the natural motion patterns of animals and human arms approaching to a fixed or moving target for capture. The method offers a fast approaching to the target and a smooth landing on the target because the motion gap is closed with a zero relative velocity and acceleration. A flight dynamics model of the UAV system is developed for simulation based analysis prior to developing a hardware prototype and flight experiment. Simulation results are presented to show the resulting bio-inspired motion trajectories for final approaching and landing, and attitude control.

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