Vision-based UAV Navigation

UAV control is a challenging research topic with significantly growing needs. I initiated and led a vision-based UAV control group at UC Berkeley. Our group successfully demonstrated the first vision-based UAV control system (automated road following system) which does not require any artificial markings.

  • The Center for Collaborative Control of Unmanned Vehicles (C3UV)
  • Ultimate Auto-Pilot, an article from Lab Notes, Research from the College of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Volume 3, Issue 8, October 2003.

    Realtime Road Detection by Learning from One Example

    A single algorithm can handle various types of roads and other locally linear structures. The road structure (intensity profile of a one-dimensional cross section) is automatically learned from a single example image and applied for realtime road detection.

    Learning road structure

  • 'Rectify' images (by finding vanishing points)
  • Estimate mean and variance of the intensity profile along the road
  • Localize road section by examining the mean and the variance profiles

    • Detecting/fitting road


  • For every (sampled) scanline, apply one dimensional template matching to find match candidates
  • Fit a constrained spline curve using a RANSAC algorithm

    • Result (video clips)

  • Realtime aqueduct following demo at Crows Landing, CA
  • Example realtime detection result (offline processing)

    • Publications

  • S. Rathinam, Z. Kim and R. Sengupta, "Vision Based Monitoring of Locally Linear Structures using an UAV," Journal of Infrastructure Systems, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 52-63, 2008.
  • S. Rathinam, Z. Kim, A. Soghikian and R. Sengupta, "Vision Based Following of Locally Linear Structures using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle", Proc. 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and European Control Conference ECC 2005. [PDF file]
  • Z. Kim, "Realtime Road Detection by Learning from One Example", Proc. IEEE Workshop on Application of Computer Vision, pp. 455-460, 2005. [PDF file]
  • E. Frew, X. Xiao, S. Spry, T. McGee, Z. Kim, and J. Tisdale, "Flight Demonstrations of Self-directed Collaborative Navigation of Small Unmanned Aircraft," Proc. AIAA 3rd "Unmanned Unlimited" Tehcnical Conference, Workshop and Exhibit, 2004
  • E. Frew, T. McGee, Z. Kim, X. Xiao, S. Jackson, M. Morimoto, S. Rathinam, J. Padial, and R. Sengupta, "Vision-based Road Following Using a Small Autonomous Aircraft", Proc. IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2004. [PDF file]

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