Design and Implementation of a Low-Cost Aided Attitude and Heading Reference System

International audienceIn this paper we propose a nonlinear observer (i.e. a “filter”) to estimate the position and velocity vectors and the orientation of a flying rigid body, using measurements from low-cost Earth-fixed position and velocity, inertial and magnetic sensors. It has by design a nice geometrical structure appealing from an engineering viewpoint; it is easy to tune, computationally very economic, and with guaranteed (at least local) convergence around every “smooth” trajectory. Moreover, it sensibly behaves in the presence of magnetic disturbances. We illustrate its good performance on experimental comparisons with a commercial system, and demonstrate its simplicity by implementing it on an 8-bit microcontroller