Autonomous Vision-based UAV Navigation

We study the problem of vision-based autonomous navigation of an autonomous vehicle in an orchard row.

Our goal is to enable vision-based Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) fully autonomous navigation in orchard-like environments for the purposes of data collection without relying on GPS.

We have developed custom controllers and vision based obstacle detection and avoidance algorithms.

For the vision component, we design a general purpose obstacle avoidance algorithm using a frontal stereo camera. For the controller component, we design a controller that uses a downward facing camera and provides reliable performance even on the presence of strong wind disturbances.