Performance Evaluation of Low Cost Multi-Antenna GPS/INS for Small UAVs

Rui Hirokawa, Ryusuke Ohata, Taro Suzuki, Takuji Ebinuma

Abstract:	This paper examines in-flight performance of a low-cost tightly coupled multi-antenna GPS/INS capable of producing highly accurate attitude of small UAVs. The main disadvantage of low-cost GPS/INS based on MEMS inertial sensors is that the typical yaw angle accuracy is limited to 0.5-2 deg. In this regard, a GPS compass using carrierphase measurements can achieve higher attitude accuracy. However, fast and reliable ambiguity resolution using lowcost GPS L1 receiver modules is a challenging task for small and highly maneuverable UAVs. In the proposed method, a tightly coupled GPS/INS is tightly integrated with a GPS compass, which allows for e ective and reliable ambiguity search to be performed on the basis of the attitude as estimated by GPS/INS with a couple of constraints for the base line vectors. The in-flight performance of the proposed GPS/INS was verified through hardware-in-the-loop simulations and experimental flights. The verification of attitude accuracy for the small UAV is highly di cult because the weight of the high-performance reference GPS/INS exceeds the loading capabilities of the small UAV. In this paper, a photogrammetry based attitude verification technique is used for the performance evaluation.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 21st International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2008) September 16 - 19, 2008 Savannah International Convention Center Savannah, GA
Pages:	1182 - 1192
Cite this article:	Hirokawa, Rui, Ohata, Ryusuke, Suzuki, Taro, Ebinuma, Takuji, "Performance Evaluation of Low Cost Multi-Antenna GPS/INS for Small UAVs," Proceedings of the 21st International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2008), Savannah, GA, September 2008, pp. 1182-1192.
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