Using parallel line information for vision-based landmark location estimation and an application to automatic helicopter landing

An approach to landmark location estimation by computer vision techniques is proposed. The objective is to derive the position and the orientation of the landmark with respect to the vehicle by a single image. Such information is necessary for automatic vehicle navigation. This approach requires lower hardware cost and simple computation. The vanishing points of the parallel lines on the landmark are used to detect the landmark orientation. The detected vanishing points are used to derive the relative orientation between the landmark and the camera, which is then utilized to compute the landmark orientation with respect to the vehicle. The size of the landmark is used to determine the landmark position. Sets of collinear points are extracted from the landmark and their inter-point distances are computed. The positions of the collinear point sets are evaluated and used to determine the landmark position. Landing site location estimation by using the identification marking H on the helicopter landing site for automatic helicopter landing is presented as an application of the proposed approach. Simulations and experiments have been conducted to prove the feasibility of the proposed approach.