Quadcopter research and application have drawn great attention in the past years. Recent successful commercialization of quadcopter make it become a popular tool applied in aerial photography, surveillance, Precision Farming. There is no doubt that in these applications, environment perception is a core capability for safe flight, in the meantime, it is a challenging problem in the real flight environment. This thesis presents the stereo vision system for the safe flight of a quadcopter. Firstly, we develop a traditional parallel pinhole stereo vision for depth capture after an accurate calibration procedure. A long baseline and rigid mount of the stereo camera enable the quadcopter to measure a long range distance from 0.5m to 15m. The Field of View of the pinhole stereo vision...[ Read more ]

Quadcopter research and application have drawn great attention in the past years. Recent successful commercialization of quadcopter make it become a popular tool applied in aerial photography, surveillance, Precision Farming. There is no doubt that in these applications, environment perception is a core capability for safe flight, in the meantime, it is a challenging problem in the real flight environment. This thesis presents the stereo vision system for the safe flight of a quadcopter. Firstly, we develop a traditional parallel pinhole stereo vision for depth capture after an accurate calibration procedure. A long baseline and rigid mount of the stereo camera enable the quadcopter to measure a long range distance from 0.5m to 15m. The Field of View of the pinhole stereo vision system is 70°. Secondly, we explore a novel Up & Down Configuration fisheye stereo vision system which enable the quadcopter to perceive the environment with 360° Field of View just in a single frame.