Directional Axis Estimation including Wind Velocity for Fixed Wing UAV

Abstract

A new method to estimate the aircraft heading angle, wind velocity, and airspeed bias error is proposed without relying on the magnetometer. A GPS, rate-gyro, pitot-static tube, and sideslip angle sensor are combined through a design of an extended Kalman filter based on a vectorial geometric relation among the ground, air, and wind velocity. The feasibility of the method is validated through a desktop simulation. The flight test is conducted utilizing the estimated yaw angle as a guidance variable to evaluate the performance of the method. The estimated wind information is compared to the automatic weather system nearby.