Automated Perching of a Multirotor UAV atop Round Timber Posts

Multirotor UAVs currently suffer from endurance issues due to limited battery capacity, greatly limiting their use for surveillance tasks in fields such as agriculture. To remedy this, we have developed a system used for perching of multirotor UAVs onto farm posts. The paper consists of two major sections: design and testing of a perching mechanism and design and testing of a computer vision based system for automated landing. Static experiments and flight testing of the completed system suggests that the design can withstand wind forces once perched and landing success is directly linked to the landing accuracy of the craft. However, performance of the controller was unsatisfactory during tests with wind, where further work could be completed.