Abstract
Autonomous landing of a quadrotor UAV on a vessel deck is challenging due to the special sea environment. In this paper, we present an on-board monocular vision based solution that provides a quadrotor with the capability to autonomously track and land on a vessel deck platform with simulated high sea state conditions. The whole landing process includes two stages: approaching from a long range and landing after hovering above the landing platform. Only on-board sensors are used in both stages, without external information input. We use Parrot AR.Drone as the experimental quadrotor platform, and a self-designed vessel deck emulator is constructed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed vessel deck landing solution. Experimental results demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the developed landing algorithms.