Dual-antenna GPS-based UAV Attitude Determination Method and Accuracy Analysis

Abstract

Accurate attitude information of small-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is required to obtain absolute azimuth information of a target via an airborne electro-optical imaging system. The direct attitude solution method of dual-antenna Global Position System (GPS) is investigated in this paper to address this need. We analyzed the attitude measurement principle of the direct method, gave the error estimation model, and estimated the inner and outer precision through simulation. The simulation results demonstrated that to achieve the requirement of UAV yaw angle error within 1°, the baseline length should be no less than 1 m. The applicability of the model and algorithm was confirmed.