Abstract:
This thesis outlines the necessary requirements to determine an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
(UAV’s) pose relative to a lead aircraft or target, thus enabling a UAV to successfully
follow a lead aircraft or target. The use of Machine Vision for Autonomous navigation has
been investigated and two flight scenarios were chosen for analysis. Firstly, following a
manoeuvring lead aircraft, and secondly, maintaining a steady heading behind a target/lead
aircraft (as would be required for in-flight refuelling). In addition, the author has performed
a literature review of current research in this field which is significantly dominated by
eventual military requirements in order to improve UAV endurance.
In addition, experimental work towards developing a passive vision based navigation
system has been undertaken. It is hoped that after further research and development this
will lead to an eventual flight trial using the flight dynamics department’s UAV’s. The
experimental work has been performed using both equipment and software already
available within the department and furthermore, it has enabled an analysis of the
department’s currently available capabilities for passive visual navigation to be undertaken.
Key points for further work have been outlined for the future advancement of the visual
navigation project.
