Tracking and control of a small unmanned aerial vehicle using a ground-based 3D laser scanner

In this work, we describe a method to measure the position and orientation of a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using a ground-based 3D laser scanner. A method to calculate UAV position from laser scanner data with weighted averaging is presented. In complement, a method to calculate UAV orientation using laser intensity data is proposed. High intensity points needed for the method is facilitated by installation of three reflective stripes on three corners of the UAV´s propeller guard. Lastly, results from early experiments on controlling the UAV using the position measurement calculated from the laser data is presented.