Design and implementation of a visual tracking system for small-scale unmanned helicopters

A visual tracking system for unmanned helicopters is introduced in this paper. The target is identified based on the identification methods of statistical analyses of color pieces and tracked based on the color histogram meanshift method. A visual tracking controller is designed for the ground target tracking. This controller contains a nonlinear controller and a linear controller. Experimental results show that the visual tracking system is stable and reliable even when the target is performing a certain extent maneuver.