Qassab, AymanKhan, Muhammad UmerIrfanoglu, BulentMechatronics EngineeringDepartment of Mechatronics Engineering2024-07-052024-07-05202403004-926110.1007/s42452-024-05986-z2-s2.0-85195405819https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-024-05986-zhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14411/2275This paper investigates the challenging problem of the autonomous landing of a quadrotor on a moving platform in a non-cooperative environment. The limited sensing ability of quadrotors often hampers their utilization for autonomous landing, especially in GPS-denied areas. The performance of motion capture systems (MCSs) in many application areas is the motivation to utilize them for the autonomous take-off and landing of the quadrotor in this research. An autonomous closed-loop vision-based navigation, tracking, and control system is proposed for quadrotors to perform landing based upon Model Predictive Control (MPC) by utilizing multi-objective functions. The entire process is posed as a constrained tracking problem to minimize energy consumption and ensure smooth maneuvers. The proposed approach is fully autonomous from take-off to landing; whereas, the movements of the landing platform are pre-defined but still unknown to the quadrotor. The landing performance of the quadrotor is tested and evaluated for three different movement patterns: static, square-shaped, and circular-shaped. Through experimental results, the pose error between the quadrotor and the platform is measured and found to be less than 30 cm. Introducing a holistic vision system for quadrotor navigation, tracking, and landing on stationary/moving platforms. Proposing an energy-efficient, smooth, and stable MPC controller validated by Lyapunov analysis. Validating the adept tracking and safe landings of the quadrotor on stationary/moving platforms through three diverse experiments.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessUnmanned aerial vehicleAutonomous vehicleLocalizationMotion capture systemModel predictive controlArticle66WOS:001237388500001