Abstract
This paper proposes a two stage target tracking algorithm for a Unmanned Ground Vehicle(UGV) to follow a small multirotor helicopter hovering in the sky. Both the UGV and the helicopter have GPS receivers to obtain their global position, but normal GPS readings are usually distorted by noise that has a several meter standard deviation, which deteriorates the tracking performance. In order to overcome this, the proposed method utilizes GPS coordinates of the UGV and the helicopter to guide the UGV roughly close to the target, and it switches the sensory information to the visual cues to estimate the UAV once the helicopter comes into the field of view. The proposed approach was verified by numerical simulations.
