Linear structures following by an airship using vanishing point and horizon line in a visual servoing scheme

In the present paper, an image-based visual servoing scheme is presented for a road following task with an autonomous airship. A new set of visual signals is introduced, namely with the vanishing point coordinates and the vanishing line parameters, which have the advantage of decoupling the rotation DOF and respecting the natural characteristics of the vehicle dynamics. An optimal control design is used for a first implementation of the approach with the simulation platform of the AURORA airship. Simulation results are presented and discussed demonstrating a fair performance even in realistic wind conditions.