A geometric approach to visual servo control in the absence of reference image

In this paper, we formulate a visual servo control problem when a reference image corresponding to the desired position and orientation (i.e., pose) of a camera is not available. The desired pose is described in terms of the introduced angle of incidence and point of arrival of a camera coordinate frame. The presented problem is motivated by the application of homing missiles where a reference image may not be available and the angle of contact with a target is crucial to maximizing the target penetration. A new geometric approach is presented to formulate a rotation error system that minimizes the required control effort while achieving the desired angle of incidence. A nonlinear adaptive control law is developed to provide 6 degrees of freedom camera motion while compensating for an unknown target depth; stability analysis is presented to prove asymptotic regulation of the system states. High-fidelity numerical simulation results are provided to verify the performance of the proposed visual servo controller.