State Estimation for Autopilot Control of Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Windy Conditions

Poorman, David Paul

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

State Estimation for Autopilot Control of Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Windy Conditions Public Deposited

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/v692t651b

Abstract

The use of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) both in the military and civil realms is growing. This is largely due to the proliferation of inexpensive sensors and the increase in capability of small computers that has stemmed from the personal electronic device market. Methods for performing accurate state estimation for large scale aircraft have been well known and understood for decades, which usually involve a complex array of expensive high accuracy sensors. Performing accurate state estimation for small unmanned aircraft is a newer area of study and often involves adapting known state estimation methods to small UAVs. State estimation for small UAVs can be more difficult than state estimation for larger UAVs due to small UAVs employing limited sensor suites due to cost, and the fact that small UAVs are more susceptible to wind than large aircraft. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the ability of existing methods of state estimation for small UAVs to accurately capture the states of the aircraft that are necessary for autopilot control of the aircraft in a Dryden wind field. The research begins by showing which aircraft states are necessary for autopilot control in Dryden wind. Then two state estimation methods that employ only accelerometer, gyro, and GPS measurements are introduced. The first method uses assumptions on aircraft motion to directly solve for attitude information and smooth GPS data, while the second method integrates sensor data to propagate estimates between GPS measurements and then corrects those estimates with GPS information. The performance of both methods is analyzed with and without Dryden wind, in straight and level flight, in a coordinated turn, and in a wings level ascent. It is shown that in zero wind, the first method produces significant steady state attitude errors in both a coordinated turn and in a wings level ascent. In Dryden wind, it produces large noise on the estimates for its attitude states, and has a non-zero mean error that increases when gyro bias is increased. The second method is shown to not exhibit any steady state error in the tested scenarios that is inherent to its design. The second method can correct for attitude errors that arise from both integration error and gyro bias states, but it suffers from lack of attitude error observability. The attitude errors are shown to be more observable in wind, but increased integration error in wind outweighs the increase in attitude corrections that such increased observability brings, resulting in larger attitude errors in wind. Overall, this work highlights many technical deficiencies of both of these methods of state estimation that could be improved upon in the future to enhance state estimation for small UAVs in windy conditions.

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