Real-Time Object Localization Using a Fuzzy Controller for a Vision-Based Drone

This study proposes a drone system with visual identification and tracking capabilities to address the issue of limited communication bandwidth for drones. This system can lock onto a target during flight and transmit its simple features to the ground station, thereby reducing communication bandwidth demands. RealFlight is used as the simulation environment to validate the proposed drone algorithm. The core components of the system include DeepSORT and MobileNet lightweight models for target tracking. The designed fuzzy controller enables the system to adjust the drone’s motors, gradually moving the locked target to the center of the frame and maintaining continuous tracking. Additionally, this study introduces channel and spatial reliability tracking (CSRT) switching from multi-object to single-object tracking and multithreading technology to enhance the system’s execution speed. The experimental results demonstrate that the system can accurately adjust the target to the frame’s center within approximately 1.5 s, maintaining precision within ±0.5 degrees. On the Jetson Xavier NX embedded platform, the average frame rate (FPS) for the multi-object tracker was only 1.37, with a standard deviation of 1.05. In contrast, the single-object tracker CSRT exhibited a significant improvement, achieving an average FPS of 9.77 with a standard deviation of 1.86. This study provides an effective solution for visual tracking in drone systems that is efficient and conserves communication bandwidth. The validation of the embedded platform highlighted its practicality and performance.