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A Multimodal Perception System for Precise Landing of UAVs in Offshore Environments
  • Rafael Marques Claro,
  • Francisco Soares Pinto Neves,
  • Andry Maykol Gomes Pinto
Rafael Marques Claro
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Francisco Soares Pinto Neves
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia
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Andry Maykol Gomes Pinto
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia
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Abstract

The integration of precise landing capabilities into UAVs is crucial for enabling autonomous operations, particularly in challenging environments such as the offshore scenarios. This work proposes a heterogeneous perception system that incorporates a multimodal fiducial marker, designed to improve the accuracy and robustness of autonomous landing of UAVs in both daytime and nighttime operations. This work presents ViTAL-TAPE, a visual transformer-based model, that enhance the detection reliability of the landing target and overcomes the changes in the illumination conditions and viewpoint positions, where traditional methods fail. VITAL-TAPE is an end-to-end model that combines multimodal perceptual information, including photometric and radiometric data, to detect landing targets defined by a fiducial marker with 6 degrees-of-freedom. Extensive experiments have proved the ability of VITAL-TAPE to detect fiducial markers with an error of 0.01 m. Moreover, experiments using the RAVEN UAV, designed to endure the challenging weather conditions of offshore scenarios, demonstrated that the autonomous landing technology proposed in this work achieved an accuracy up to 0.1 m. This research also presents the first successful autonomous operation of a UAV in a commercial offshore wind farm with floating foundations installed in the Atlantic Ocean. These experiments showcased the system's accuracy, resilience and robustness, resulting in a precise landing technology that extends mission capabilities of UAVs, enabling autonomous and Beyond Visual Line of Sight offshore operations.
09 May 2024Submitted to Journal of Field Robotics
11 May 2024Submission Checks Completed
11 May 2024Assigned to Editor
11 May 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
04 Jun 2024Reviewer(s) Assigned
21 Jul 2024Editorial Decision: Revise Major
07 Aug 20241st Revision Received
08 Aug 2024Submission Checks Completed
08 Aug 2024Assigned to Editor
08 Aug 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
10 Aug 2024Reviewer(s) Assigned