Visual Servoing for Multirotor Precision Landing in Daylight and After-Dark Conditions

The problem of precision landing for autonomous multirotor UAVs operating during the day and at night is studied. A vision-based approach is proposed and consists of varying-degree-of-freedom image-based visual servoing (VDOF IBVS), and a specialized landing marker. The proposed approach is validated through extensive flight testing outdoors in both daylight and after-dark conditions, and is done using a standard off-the-shelf autopilot system.