Computer Vision-based Navigation and Predefined Track Following Control of a Small Robotic Airship

For small robotic airships, it is required that the airship should be capable of following a predefined track. In this paper, computer vision-based navigation and optimal fuzzy control strategies for the robotic airship are proposed. Firstly, visual navigation based on natural landmarks of the environment is introduced. For example, when the airship is flying over a city, buildings can be used as visual beacons whose geometrical properties are known from the digital map or a geographical information system (GIS). Then a geometrical methodology is adopted to extract information about the orientation and position of the airship. In order to keep the airship on a predefined track, a fuzzy flight control system is designed, which uses those data as its input. And genetic algorithms (GAs), a general-purpose global optimization method, are utilized to optimize the membership functions of the fuzzy controller. Finally, the navigation and control strategies are validated.