UAV attitude estimation using antenna arrays
Attiya Mahmood, Jon W. Wallace, Michael A. Jensen · 2017
This paper presents a new algorithm for estimating all three Euler angles that specify the relative attitude between two unmanned aerial vehicles based on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radio transmissions. The algorithm uses direction-of-arrival estimates as well as estimates of the multi-polarized MIMO channel response to construct the coordinate frames describing the UAV attitudes. These coordinate frames then allow specification of the rotations required to align one UAV with the other. Simulations reveal that estimation errors are relatively small even for low signal-to-noise ratio.