Horizon-Based Attitude Estimation from a Panoramic Vision Sensor

Knowing the exact attitude of the aerial vehicle is a critical factor for autonomous flying. In this paper, a new panoramic vision-based attitude determination is presented. A new camera system is designed with combination of a CCD camera, UltraViolet (UV) filter and a panoramic mirror-lens. The panoramic image, to be used for attitude determination is presented in UV wavelength to enhance the contrast between the sky and the ground. The vision system can be used to reduce the drift of aerial vehicles and the validity of the method is evaluated comparing to IMU.