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CEAS EuroGNC 2024

Landing Pad Design for Optical-aided Automatic Vertical Take-off and Landing
Jun Shi Research Associate, Technical University of Munich, Institute of Flight System Dynamics, 85748, Garching, Germany.
Xiang Fang Research Associate, Technical University of Munich, Institute of Flight System Dynamics, 85748, Garching, Germany.
Nils Schlautmann Research Associate, Technical University of Munich, Institute of Flight System Dynamics, 85748, Garching, Germany.
Michael Zintl Research Associate, Technical University of Munich, Institute of Flight System Dynamics, 85748, Garching, Germany.
Johann Dambeck Professor, Technical University of Munich, Institute of Flight System Dynamics, 85748, Garching, Germany.
Florian Holzapfel Professor, Technical University of Munich, Institute of Flight System Dynamics, 85748, Garching, Germany.
Abstract:
Automatic landing of VTOL aircraft under low illumination conditions, e.g., night operations, is challenging. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a novel design of ground-based infrastructure comprising a landing pad equipped with optical markers including finder markers and active markers. The design enables a VTOL aircraft equipped with an onboard camera to obtain real-time 6-degree-of-freedom relative pose during the landing phase under low illumination conditions since the optical markers are composed of active light sources. The well-structured layout geometry of the finder markers facilitates robust landing pad detection from aerial images without relying on complicated feature-matching technology. The active markers, employing specific blinking frequencies, contribute to the unique identification of the landing pad, ensuring a secure landing. To validate the feasibility of relative pose estimation with the proposed layout of optical markers, a modified four-point algorithm is applied for pose estimation in this paper. Compared with the classic four-point algorithm, our solution avoids the explicit ambiguity resolution. It uniquely determines the relative pose by fully leveraging prior knowledge of the landing pad surface. Simulations with a landing trajectory demonstrate that the proposed landing pad design is theoretically feasible for automatic take-off and landing in terms of recognition and pose estimation.
Keywords: VTOL Aircraft; Low Illumination; Landing Pad; Optical Marker; Active Light Source; Camera; Relative 6DoF Pose Estimation; Four-point Algorithm
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Jun Shi, Xiang Fang, Nils Schlautmann, Michael Zintl, Johann Dambeck, Florian Holzapfel: Landing Pad Design for Optical-aided Automatic Vertical Take-off and Landing. Proceedings of the 2024 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Bristol, UK. June 2024. CEAS-GNC-2024-047.
BibTeX entry:

@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2024-047,
    author = {Shi, Jun and Fang, Xiang and Schlautmann, Nils and Zintl, Michael and Dambeck, Johann and Holzapfel, Florian},
    title = {Landing Pad Design for Optical-aided Automatic Vertical Take-off and Landing},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2024 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
    address = {Bristol, UK},
    month = jun,
    year = {2024},
    note = {CEAS-GNC-2024-047}
}