NAVSEA VisHawk
The VisHawk project is pursuing RF-silent autonomous flight of multirotor UAVs between ships underway at sea. We implement this behaviour by guiding the final approach with Apriltag visual fiducials. Using GPS and a known initial trajectory of the landing vessel, VisHawk closes to within visual range of the vessel. VisHawk then uses the visual marker to produce a safe approach trajectory, updating in real time to consider uncertainties such as sea conditions moving the deck of the landing vessel.