Cost-efficient mono-camera tracking system for a multirotor UAV aimed for hardware-in-the-loop experiments

We describe a low-cost multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) testbed as a solution for typical challenges in system identification and control design which are dominant in early stages of multirotor research. Our main contribution is the development of an easy-to-use interface for rapid prototyping of control strategies within Matlab Simulink by using a self-made mono-camera tracking system for global position and orientation measurements. The system works with active markers on the UAV for fast and robust tracking capabilities within a wide range of illumination conditions. Its accuracy is evaluated theoretically as well as in practical experiments including runtime considerations. Following the idea of an easy-to-use hardware setup to support smaller research groups without access to expensive motion capture systems, the implemented software will be published as open source.