Visual Servoing Based Landing Approach Controller for Fixed-Wing MAVs

Automatic landing is crucial for the usability of future micro aerial vehicle (MAV) systems. This paper introduces a method to land with the help of an inertial navigation system (INS), differential pressure sensor and camera, which is especially tailored for MAVs. The landing area can be easily defined and adapted to local obstacles and the current wind situation by placing three visual markers. The visual markers are detected by the camera and linked to the aircraft using a linearized, state dependent model. The applied control law is compared to existing approaches and tested in both, simulation environment as well as real flight.