Autonomous landing solution of low-cost quadrotor on a moving platform

In this paper, a complete solution for autonomous landing of a low-cost quadrotor on a moving platform is presented. First, the dynamic model of the quadrotor is described and simplified for landing task. Second, a novel landing pad associated with detection algorithm is designed for robust detection by a low-cost monocular camera. In order to deal with mirror effect and occasional misidentification, a 3D point cluster algorithm for relative position estimation is proposed. Third, using the backstepping approach, an adaptive position controller is designed to calculate the desired attitude for attitude loop. The overall stability of the position loop is proven by a Lyapunov method. Meanwhile, some landing strategies are presented to achieve a safe and stable landing task. Finally, the low-cost system architecture of the quadrotor and the experiment results are both demonstrated to showcase the effectiveness of the proposed method.