Navigation system for a micro-UAV

Recent progress in technology has made small helicopter UAVs possible. A small helicopter UAV has a number of advantages and disadvantages in comparison to traditional larger UAVs. With a careful design it could offer an inexpensive, portable, and flexible UAV solution with some unique capabilities. The role of a UAV is often scouting. A simple basis for this task could be to provide an operator with visual information. The visual information alone is easily interpreted by the operator but for automatic interpretation of visual data, as well as other sensor data, some information about location is essential. Hence a navigation system would be desirable for any UAV platform. In this study, an inexpensive GPS-aided inertial navigation system, from readily available off-the-shelf components, is developed for an existing small helicopter UAV platform. The GPS to inertial measuremen