UAV Attitude Estimation Using Unscented Kalman Filter and TRIAD

Abstract

A main problem in autonomous vehicles in general, and in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in particular, is the determination of the attitude angles. A novel method to estimate these angles using off-the-shelf components is presented. This paper introduces an Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS) based on the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) using the Three Axis Attitude Determination (TRIAD) algorithm as the observation model. The performance of the method is assessed through simulations and compared to an AHRS based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The paper presents field experiment results using a real fixed-wing UAV. The results show good real-time performance with low computational cost in a microcontroller.

A DCM Based Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Low-Cost MEMS IMUs

“…In many algorithms, other measurements are needed in addition to gyroscopes and accelerometers in order to estimate gyroscope biases. The most commonly used sensors are triaxial magnetometers [2,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]25] and satellite navigation [3,5,[17][18][19][20]. In addition to our work, few filters [21][22][23][24]30] have been able to estimate gyroscope biases without extra sensors in addition to the triaxial accelerometer and gyroscope.…”

“…Most of these consist of various Kalman filter solutions [2,3,5,12,13,16,25], usually extended Kalman filters (EKF) [7,9,10,15,17,18,20,26], and some unscented Kalman filters (UKF) [14,19,27], though some non-Kalman filter solutions also exist [1,4,11,21,[28][29][30] as well as some geometric methods [31][32][33][34]. In addition, Chao et al [35] have carried out a comparative study of low-cost IMU filters.…”

“…Therefore, the integration of triaxial accelerometers and gyroscopes cannot provide an absolute heading angle. This is commonly overcome using an extra sensor, usually a triaxial magnetometer [2,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] or satellite navigation [3,5,[17][18][19][20]. Triaxial magnetometers offer a good solution if the magnetic field measurement can be trusted.…”

An Optimized Triad Algorithm for Attitude Determination

“…In satellite, star sensors obtained those vectors [2][3][4][5]. In 2012, the TRIAD was used to calculate the nine terms of the direct cosine matrix (DCM) in an attitude and heading reference system (AHRS), the two vectors used for TRIAD were geomagnetic field and gravitational field [6]. In [7] a TRIAD based on GPS signal was proposed to estimate attitude of the unmanned airborne vehicles (UAVs).…”

Open Solution for Humanoid Attitude Estimation through Sensory Integration and Extended Kalman Filtering

“…Even if the attitude estimation is a classical problem in mobile wheeled robotics [5], [6] and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) [7], [8], [9], several researchers have extended Open Solution for Humanoid Attitude Estimation P. Pierro, C. A. Monje, N. Mansard, P. Souères, C. Balaguer such techniques to legged locomotion [10], [11], [12], [13], [14].…”