VTOL precision landing

We are doing a lot of mapping missions, sometimes several weeks (up to 8 or 9) in a row. We normally fly up to 4 missions a day and do our planning long time in advance.

Because of this, of course it is impossible to predict wind and weather conditions by the time we actually fly.

So we only plan the mission itself and not plan auto take off and landing. Especially the landing of course has to have the nose pointing towards the wind.

That’s why we do manual take off and landing.

Take off is fairly easy. Qhover up to take off altitude, FBWA to reach mission altitude and Auto.

Landing is a bit more tricky. As soon as the plane comes into sight, we switch to FBWA, descend to landing altitude (20 to 30 meter), Qhover, manoeuvre over the landing spot, switch to Qland (we use Lidar) and land. During the Qland stage, it is still possible to do minor adjustments on the position, but its very hard to land spot on.

So here comes my question:

I noticed arducopter has a precision landing function using the Pixy camera and an IR beacon.

Could this be integrated in the Arduplane firmware as well? It would make our life a lot easier…

Did I post this in the wrong category?

Hi Anthony, I am also interested to do this precision landing for my Quadplane. I really hope it works the same way as the Arducopter. I just read that Tiziano did precision landing using OpenCV and Raspi. But Is a bit complicated. I prefer the simple way. Regards…

I have seen a GPS that provides cm of accuracy. let me see if I can find it

Check this thread…