Backstepping based visual servoing for transport aircraft automatic landing

In this paper we propose a vision based flight control law for the automatic landing of an aircraft. Newly defined visual features obtained by a 2D-video camera embed the needed information about the relative pose between the aircraft and the runway. To cope with their dependence on the unknown distance to the ground, a depth estimation algorithm is proposed. With these elements, several nonlinear and adaptive control backstepping laws are derived depending on our knowledge of the runway width. Closed-loop stability proofs are also provided. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the approach.