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Onboard and External Magnetic Bias Estimation for UAS through CDGNSS/Visual Cooperative Navigation

This paper describes a calibration technique aimed at combined estimation of onboard and external magnetic disturbances for small Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). In particular, the objective is to estimate the onboard horizontal bias components and the external magnetic declination, thus improving he...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Vitiello, Federica, Causa, Flavia, Opromolla, Roberto, Fasano, Giancarmine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8196794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34064082
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21113582
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author Vitiello, Federica
Causa, Flavia
Opromolla, Roberto
Fasano, Giancarmine
author_facet Vitiello, Federica
Causa, Flavia
Opromolla, Roberto
Fasano, Giancarmine
author_sort Vitiello, Federica
collection PubMed
description This paper describes a calibration technique aimed at combined estimation of onboard and external magnetic disturbances for small Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). In particular, the objective is to estimate the onboard horizontal bias components and the external magnetic declination, thus improving heading estimation accuracy. This result is important to support flight autonomy, even in environments characterized by significant magnetic disturbances. Moreover, in general, more accurate attitude estimates provide benefits for georeferencing and mapping applications. The approach exploits cooperation with one or more “deputy” UAVs and combines drone-to-drone carrier phase differential GNSS and visual measurements to attain magnetic-independent attitude information. Specifically, visual and GNSS information is acquired at different heading angles, and bias estimation is modelled as a non-linear least squares problem solved by means of the Levenberg–Marquardt method. An analytical error budget is derived to predict the achievable accuracy. The method is then demonstrated in flight using two customized quadrotors. A pointing analysis based on ground and airborne control points demonstrates that the calibrated heading estimate allows obtaining an angular error below 1°, thus resulting in a substantial improvement against the use of either the non-calibrated magnetic heading or the multi-sensor-based solution of the DJI onboard navigation filter, which determine angular errors of the order of several degrees.
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spelling pubmed-81967942021-06-13 Onboard and External Magnetic Bias Estimation for UAS through CDGNSS/Visual Cooperative Navigation Vitiello, Federica Causa, Flavia Opromolla, Roberto Fasano, Giancarmine Sensors (Basel) Article This paper describes a calibration technique aimed at combined estimation of onboard and external magnetic disturbances for small Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). In particular, the objective is to estimate the onboard horizontal bias components and the external magnetic declination, thus improving heading estimation accuracy. This result is important to support flight autonomy, even in environments characterized by significant magnetic disturbances. Moreover, in general, more accurate attitude estimates provide benefits for georeferencing and mapping applications. The approach exploits cooperation with one or more “deputy” UAVs and combines drone-to-drone carrier phase differential GNSS and visual measurements to attain magnetic-independent attitude information. Specifically, visual and GNSS information is acquired at different heading angles, and bias estimation is modelled as a non-linear least squares problem solved by means of the Levenberg–Marquardt method. An analytical error budget is derived to predict the achievable accuracy. The method is then demonstrated in flight using two customized quadrotors. A pointing analysis based on ground and airborne control points demonstrates that the calibrated heading estimate allows obtaining an angular error below 1°, thus resulting in a substantial improvement against the use of either the non-calibrated magnetic heading or the multi-sensor-based solution of the DJI onboard navigation filter, which determine angular errors of the order of several degrees. MDPI 2021-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8196794/ /pubmed/34064082 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21113582 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Vitiello, Federica
Causa, Flavia
Opromolla, Roberto
Fasano, Giancarmine
Onboard and External Magnetic Bias Estimation for UAS through CDGNSS/Visual Cooperative Navigation
title Onboard and External Magnetic Bias Estimation for UAS through CDGNSS/Visual Cooperative Navigation
title_full Onboard and External Magnetic Bias Estimation for UAS through CDGNSS/Visual Cooperative Navigation
title_fullStr Onboard and External Magnetic Bias Estimation for UAS through CDGNSS/Visual Cooperative Navigation
title_full_unstemmed Onboard and External Magnetic Bias Estimation for UAS through CDGNSS/Visual Cooperative Navigation
title_short Onboard and External Magnetic Bias Estimation for UAS through CDGNSS/Visual Cooperative Navigation
title_sort onboard and external magnetic bias estimation for uas through cdgnss/visual cooperative navigation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8196794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34064082
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21113582
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