Improved particle filter-based estimation of a quadrotor subjected to uncertainties

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an improved particle filter-based attitude estimator for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that addresses the degeneracy issues. Design/methodology/approach Control of a quadrotor is not sufficient enough without an estimator to eliminate the noise from low-cost sensors. In this work, particle filter-based attitude estimator is proposed and used for nonlinear quadrotor dynamics. But, since recursive Bayesian estimation steps may rise degeneracy issues, the proposed scheme is improved with four different and widely used resampling algorithms. Findings Robustness of the proposed schemes is tested under various scenarios that include different levels of uncertainty and different particle sizes. Statistical analyses are conducted to assess the error performance of the schemes. According to the statistical analysis, the proposed estimators are capable of reducing sensor noise up to 5x, increasing signal to noise ratio up to 2.5x and reducing the uncertainty bounds up to 36x with root mean square value of as low as 0.0024, mean absolute error value of 0.036, respectively. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this paper is to propose a robust particle filter-based attitude estimator to eliminate the low-cost sensor errors of quadrotor UAVs.