1 / 2018-04-08 09:39:32

Common-clock Approach for UAVs Attitude Determination

GNSS,multi-antenna,attitude measuring

Measurement of attitude information is a well-known hotspot in autonomous vehicles, and in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in particular. The high-precision, real-time attitude determination system can be accomplished by processing the Global Positioning System (GPS) carrier phase with fixed baseline length as constraint. This article presents a synchronized multi-antenna system for UAV’s attitude determination. Depending on the proper configuration of receiver, the baseline vectors and the platform orientation which defined by this vectors can be estimated. In addition, traditional On-the-fly (OTF) carrier phase ambiguity resolution method is applied through double-difference (DD) model with mathematical correlation. Combining with common-clock GPS receiver, the single-difference (SD) model removes both satellite and receiver clock errors simultaneously, which is equal to the conventional DD method. To evaluate the proposed scheme on Fixed-Wing UVAs, a kinematic short baseline experiment is carried out. The result demonstrates the feasibility of the whole scheme in terms of accuracy and reliability.