Planar-Sector LOS Guidance for Interception of Agile Targets with Lifting-Wing Quadcopters

2026-06-09

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of achieving long-range, high-maneuverability visual interception of aerial targets using only an onboard monocular camera. To overcome the limitations imposed by conventional symmetric conical field-of-view constraints on vehicle agility, the authors propose a Planar Sector Line-of-Sight (PS-LOS) guidance framework. This approach enforces strict lateral image error bounds to maintain target visibility while relaxing longitudinal constraints to preserve maneuverability margins. Integrating a lift-wing quadrotor dynamics model, delay-compensated state estimation, and a unified nonlinear guidance-control architecture, the system enables pure line-of-sight interception without depth measurements. Experimental results demonstrate successful interception of large-amplitude, high-frequency, and unpredictable maneuvering targets under real-world outdoor wind disturbances at distances up to 138 meters, with stable tracking throughout and nearly 50% increased usable thrust in the line-of-sight direction.

Abstract

Autonomous visual interception of agile aerial targets is challenging due to unpredictable target motion, limited sensing, and the strong coupling between target visibility and interceptor maneuverability. Most existing strapdown-camera interception methods preserve visibility using conic line-of-sight (LOS) constraints that keep the target near the image center. While safe, such symmetric constraints unnecessarily restrict maneuverability and can significantly reduce the usable thrust for pursuit. Motivated by the observation that aggressive FPV pilots do not maintain equal visibility margins in all image directions, this paper proposes a Planar-Sector Line-of-Sight (PS-LOS) guidance framework for autonomous interception using a lifting-wing quadcopter equipped with only a strapdown monocular camera. PS-LOS tightly constrains lateral image error while relaxing longitudinal image error within a safe field-of-view margin, preserving visibility while releasing maneuverability for acceleration-intensive pursuit. Under the lifting-wing quadcopter model, PS-LOS provides nearly 50% more available thrust near the LOS direction than conventional conic LOS constraints. To realize LOS-only interception without direct depth measurements, a delay-compensated state-estimation framework and a nonlinear guidance-and-control architecture are developed for lifting-wing quadcopters. Extensive outdoor flight experiments demonstrate autonomous interception of agile targets exhibiting large-amplitude, high-frequency, and unpredictable motion under real wind disturbances. The proposed system achieves successful interceptions at ranges up to 138 m while maintaining continuous visual tracking throughout the engagement. The results validate PS-LOS as a visibility-preserving, maneuverability-aware guidance framework for long-range visual interception of agile aerial targets.

Problem

• autonomous interception
• agile aerial targets
• line-of-sight guidance
• visual tracking
• maneuverability constraints

Innovation

• Planar-Sector LOS
• lifting-wing quadcopter
• autonomous visual interception
• maneuverability-aware guidance
• strapdown monocular vision