MAV Attitude Estimation Using Low-Cost MEMS Inertial Sensors and GPS

Jan Wendel, Oliver Meister, Ralf Monikes, Christian Schlaile, Gert F. Trommer

Abstract:	"Micro aerial vehicles are used primarily for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes. Especially VTOL-MAVs require permanent attitude control to be airborne. Due to constraints in weight, processing power and size, the necessary navigation information is not easy to obtain. This paper describes the design of an integrated navigation system for a small four rotor helicopter based on MEMS inertial sensors and GPS. In an usual GPS/INS system, GPS outages are bridged by purely inertial navigation. Due to the poor quality of the low-cost MEMS inertial sensors, a different strategy has to be applied here: In case of GPS loss, the roll and pitch angle estimates are aided by assuming that the main source of acceleration is the local gravity vector. In order to assure the observability of the yaw angle in absence of horizontal accelerations, a magnetometer is used. The data fusion is performed by a Kalman filter, which is described in detail. Simulation results as well as flight test results illustrate that the resulting system is able to provide the required attitude information even during permanent GPS loss and dynamic maneuvering. "
Published in:	Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2005) June 27 - 29, 2005 Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge, MA
Pages:	397 - 403
Cite this article:	Wendel, Jan, Meister, Oliver, Monikes, Ralf, Schlaile, Christian, Trommer, Gert F., "MAV Attitude Estimation Using Low-Cost MEMS Inertial Sensors and GPS," Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2005), Cambridge, MA, June 2005, pp. 397-403.
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