Application of vision based techniques for UAV position estimation

The objective of this project is to set up wireless communication for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and to estimate the position of the UAV using vision-based techniques with an onboard camera, in a real-time, continuously interacting scenario. Here, vision based navigation is explored with different algorithms (RANSAC feature detection and normalized cross correlation with prior edge detection) and the benefits and disadvantages of each are compared. Vision based navigation uses a camera onboard the UAV to continuously transmit an aerial video of the ground to the GCS and the position of the UAV is determined using geo-referenced images such as those obtained from Google Earth.