Research on Autonomous Navigation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Based on Correlation-Based Image Comparison Methods

Relevance. Autonomous navigation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is one of the key challenges in the modern aerospace industry. Specifically, for small UAVs, the task of autonomous navigation becomes even more complex due to limitations in computational resources and sensor capabilities. Optimizing navigation methods under such conditions is a pressing issue that requires solutions capable of providing high performance with minimal resource consumption. Objective. Improving the efficiency of autonomous navigation for small UAVs by using correlation methods for image comparison. Achieving this objective is linked to the development and evaluation of algorithms that provide high-speed and accurate navigation with limited computational resources. The work uses methods such as the autocorrelation function, Pearson correlation, the structural similarity index, and a simple neural network for image comparison. Solution. The research showed that the autocorrelation-based approach demonstrates the best performance under low computational resources. It ensures high-speed processing of the entire image and shows optimal detection accuracy. Compared to other methods presented in the study, the autocorrelation approach is capable of working not only with noise in the "reference" map but also of using alternative areas with altered patterns as detected regions. The scientific novelty of the study is determined by the systematic comparison of various methods applied to the task of image comparison for small UAVs with limited computational resources. Unlike well-known works in the field of correlation-extreme systems, this research focuses on the use of a "reference map" and a search area, representing two different images of the same terrain taken from different sources. This is a key difference, as most methods are not highly efficient in processing such images where patterns may differ significantly. The practical significance of the developed algorithm lies in the fact that the proposed autocorrelation-based method can be used by developers of autonomous small UAV control systems to reduce computational load and increase data processing speed.