Efficient Optical Flow and Stereo Vision for Velocity Estimation and Obstacle Avoidance on an Autonomous Pocket Drone
Kimberly McGuire (TU Delft - Control & Simulation)
Guido C.H.E.de de Croon (TU Delft - Control & Simulation)
C de Wagter (TU Delft - Control & Simulation)
Karl Tuyls (University of Liverpool)
Hilbert Kappen (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)
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Abstract
Micro Aerial Vehicles (FOV) are very suitable for flying in indoor environments, but autonomous navigation is challenging due to their strict hardware limitations. This paper presents a highly efficient computer vision algorithm called Edge-FS for the determination of velocity and depth. It runs at 20 Hz on a 4 g stereo camera with an embedded STM32F4 microprocessor (168 MHz, 192 kB) and uses edge distributions to calculate optical flow and stereo disparity. The stereo-based distance estimates are used to scale the optical flow in order to retrieve the drone's velocity. The velocity and depth measurements are used for fully autonomous flight of a 40 g pocket drone only relying on on-board sensors. This method allows the MAV to control its velocity and avoid obstacles.