UAV Attitude Measurement based on Enhanced Mahony Complementary Filter

Aiming at the low-cost attitude measurement of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), a micro-inertial attitude measurement system that comprises of low-precision Micro-Electro Measurement System (MEMS) gyroscopes and accelerometers is designed. The system does not rely on any external aiding information, a stable and reliable attitude measurement information can be achieved by only using the tri-axial gyroscope and the tri-axial accelerometers in various dynamic conditions. Meanwhile, an enhanced Mahony complementary filter algorithm based on gravity field adaptation is proposed to adjust the parameters of filter algorithm automatically. In addition, the quaternion is used to calculate the attitude angles of UAV, which improved the accuracy and reliability of the attitude measurement system in some extent. Furthermore, the feasibility of the UAV attitude measurement system is verified by the helicopter flight experiment. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate that the errors of horizontal attitude angles are less than 3 degrees when they compared with the high-precision fiber optic gyroscope based strapdown inertial navigation system.