Visual servoing of a class of under-actuated dynamic rigid-body systems

Abstract

An image-based control strategy for visual servoing is presented. The proposed control design addresses visual servoing of 'eye-in-hand' type systems and treats the camera motion as rigid-body dynamics that are positioned relative to an observed visual target. The proposed design is applicable to a class of under-actuated dynamic systems that include idealized models of mobile robotic vehicles such as helicopters, aeroplanes, etc. The proposed design is motivated by a theoretical analysis of the dynamic equations of motion of an underactuated rigid body and exploits passivity-like properties of these dynamics to derive a Lyapunov control algorithm using robust backstepping techniques.