Design, Implementation and Testing of a Vision System for Small Unmanned Vertical Take off and Landing Vehicles with Strict Payload Limitations

Alternative designs of a simple, low cost and effective vision system for small, portable, unmanned aerial vertical take off and landing (VTOL) vehicles are presented. Design configurations follow the ‘on-board’ and ‘on-the-ground’ processing concept and they depend on very strict payload limitations and power supply restrictions. Hardware and software components for both designs are described; advantages and disadvantages of both alternatives are compared; computational complexity is calculated and trade offs are discussed. Implementations on a series of small unmanned VTOL vehicles as well as testing details are included and experimental results are presented.

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