Development of a small tracking camera system for mobile platforms

Recently, there are many needs for small tracking camera systems to be mounted on mobile platforms, such as bikes, cars, etc., to tracking some targets stably in a perturbation environment. To meet the needs, a small tracking camera system has been developed by authors. The purpose of the tracking camera system is both to stabilize the camera and to track the target simultaneously. The system consists of three axes driven by DC motors with encoders, to form velocity and position control loop. Outside the loop, another position control loop is composed based on the integration of both rate gyro and inclinometer by a designed filter, to stabilize the camera. And besides the two loops, another position compensation loop is formed by introducing the camera position information, to track the target. This paper describes the system configuration, the design of controller as well as sensor systems, and the experimental results on the tracking performance.