Homography-based visual servoing of an aircraft for automatic approach and landing

This paper proposes the Euclidean homography matrix as visual feature in an image-based visual servoing scheme in order to control an aircraft along the approach and landing phase. With a trajectory defined in the image space by a sequence of equidistant key images along the glidepath, an interpolation in the homography space is also proposed in order to reduce the database size and ensure the required smoothness of the control task. In addition, a pan-tilt control was taken into account to respect the dynamics of the aircraft during manoeuvres and in the presence of wind perturbations. An optimal control design based on the linearized model of the aircraft dynamics is then consider to cancel the visual error function. To demonstrate the proposed concept, simulation results under realistic atmospheric disturbances are presented.