EVALUATION OF LOW COST GPS APPLICATION FOR AN AUTONOMOUS

HELICOPTER IN THE PRESENCE OF KALMAN FILTER

A. Budiyono*, T. Sudiyanto and H.Y. Sutarto

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics ITB
Jl. Ganesha 10 Bandung

Abstract: The design of an autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been primarily driven by
system technology development. The highest added value for such a vehicle comes from the system
instrumentation and payload and not so much from airframe technology. An important aspect of
system technology development for an autonomous UAV is the application of a low cost sensor to
overcome a prohibitive expenditure associated with high performance instrumentation. A justified
approach for the implementation of a low cost sensor without compromising overall performance is
therefore desired. This paper addresses the problem of a low cost GPS application for an
autonomous helicopter. A GPS mathematical model is used in the vehicle control loop. An estimator
for GPS measurement is designed using Kalman Filtering. By using the GPS model, various GPS
sensors ranging from low to high grade can be represented. The estimation signal from Kalman
Filter is then used to evaluate the performance of the GPS. The use of a low grade GPS is finally
assessed based on time domain system responses representing overall performance of the closed loop
control system.
Keywords: system technology, Kalman filter, autonomous helicopter, GPS model

1 Introduction
Recent years have witnessed a rapid progress in
2 Autonomous Helicopter
the enabling technologies for unmanned aerial A model helicopter has been chosen as the flying
vehicles. Those include airframes, propulsion test-bed due to its potential in representing many
systems, payloads, safety or protection systems, advanced phenomena in the study of dynamics
launch and recovery, data processor, ground and control such as nonlinearity, hybrid system,
control station, navigation and guidance, and multi-input multi-output and non-minimum
autonomous flight controllers. From all those phase. In the mean time, those rich behavior
factors, system technology occupies the most pose many difficulties in the design of guidance,
critical contribution to the success of UAV navigation and control for the helicopter. To
development and operation. Sensor technology address the problem, a step-by-step design
particularly has accelerated the application of approach has been taken by utilizing Hardware
UAV for different missions. The common In the Loop simulation facility [6]. The
availability of Global Positioning Satellite autonomous helicopter hardware system is
Navigation Systems has a profound impact to the described by the following figure [2]:
navigation system development for UAVs. The
satellite-based navigation provides wider
coverage and more flexibility than terrestrial
navigation. The discontinuation of selective
availability of the system has further fueled
increased interest in using GPS not only for
navigation but also for attitude measurement.
High perfomance and high integrity GPS,
however typically places a cost barrier to most
users. The paper address the problem of using a
low cost GPS in the context of building an
autonomous helicopter. The performance of low
cost GPS will be compared to ones with the Fig. 2.1 Autonomous helicopter hardware system
higher grade within the framework of helicopter
feedback control system.
Different data is picked-up by the sensors to Position Velocity
measure the vehicle attitude, positions and Update Rate 5 Hz 5 Hz
atmospheric data. The vehicle attitude dynamics
Latency 0.075 s 0.075 s
is measured using Inertial Measurement Unit
(IMU) which typically consists of triad Accuracy 0.65 ft 0.1 ft/s
accelerometer to sense the accelerations and Error Dynamic Parameter (a) 0.5 s 2.5 s
triad gyros to sense the Euler angles. The vehicle Table 3.1 The GPS Model Parameter Values
positions can be deducted from the accelerations
or obtained from GPS measurements [2]. Within 4 The Kalman Filtering Algorithm
the HIL framework, all sensors are
mathematically modeled based on the available A discrete Kalman Filter Algorithm is
technical specifications. The availability of the implemented to the GPS model’s output
sensor model enable the evaluation of channels. The algorithm is illustrated in figure
performance of different grade or quality. 4.1. The filter provides states estimation ( xˆ j )
based on every measurement output ( z j ) by the
3 The GPS Model
GPS and the previous step estimation ( xˆ j −1 ). The
The Global Positioning System is a satellite
process performed by the plant is considered as a
navigation system that allows the user to acquire
dynamic system which has a neutral stability
accurate determination of position and velocity
characteristic that the transition function (φ) may
based on noisy observation of the satellite
be considered as an identity matrix. The
signals. The model has the same structure for
measurement’s noise covariance matrix (R) is
both position and velocity but with different
provided by processing the error generated by
parameter values. The mathematical model of
the GPS from time to time. Since the
the GPS is based on that derived in the
experimental data which is required to compute
[Prasaad]. The block diagram is presented in
the process’ noise covariance matrix (Q) is not
figure 3.1 and the values of the parameters of the
available yet, a value of about 10% of R is
model are in table 3.1. The main characteristic of
considered for Q. For detailed discussion of
the GPS which have been considered are
discrete Kalman Filtering, one can refer to
latency, update rate, accuracy and error
[Brown].
dynamics parameter.
The update rate represents the rate at which the
position and velocity signals are sent to the
receiving processor and is modeled as
quantization. The latency is the time delay that
occurs between the time the satellite information
is received and the time the position or velocity
output is sent to the receiver. It is modeled as a
pure time delay. The accuracy is the radius of
the circle with the origin at the actual position or
velocity which contains 50% of the sensors
output values. The error of the GPS sensor
package is generated as output of a first order Fig. 4.1 The Kalman Filtering Algorithm
linear differential equation with random
Gaussian input and initial condition. 5 Performance Analysis

5.1 Open loop

The simulation results as described on figure 5.1,
figure 5.2, figure 5.3, figure 5.4, figure 5.5,
figure 5.6, figure 5.7, figure 5.8, figure 5.9,
figure 5.10, figure 5.11, and figure 5.12 show
that the greater the GPS error deviation, the
better the GPS noise is supressed by the filter,
Fig. 3.1 The GPS Model yet, the greater the filter error estimation. Vice
versa, the smaller the GPS error deviation, the
supressed noise is not too significant, and yet,
the smaller the filter error estimation.

Fig. 5.4 Estimated Velocity in North Direcion

MEASURED ALTITUDE
7000
σ2 = 100
6000

Fig. 5.1 Measured Position in North Direcion

5000

4000

(meter)
3000

2000

1000

-1000
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
(second)

Fig. 5.5 Measured Altitude

Fig. 5.2 Estimated Position in North Position

Fig. 5.6 Estimated Altitude

Fig. 5.3 Measured Position in East Direcion

Fig. 5.7 Measured Velocity in North Direcion

 Fig. 5.11 Measured Rate of Climb

Fig. 5.8 Estimated Velocity in North Position

Fig. 5.12 Estimated Rate of Climb

5.2 Closed loop

To further evaluate the performance of the GPS
with various grades, three different GPS were
tested within the feedback loop of autonomous
helicopter control system. The baseline system is
the autonomous helicopter controlled using
optimal control synthesis given in Ref [3]. The
wind model with Dryden spectrum is added into
the velocity channel. The triad velocities
including the disturbance will be the input of the
Fig. 5.9 Measured Velocity in East Direcion GPS model. The output of the GPS is taken by
the Discrete Kalman Filter algorithm prior to the
control algorithm block. Figs. 5.13 and 5.14
show position tracking in the East and North
direction respectively. Whereas Figs 5.15
through 5.17 give illustration of the velocity
tracking in the forward, side and vertical
direction. Finally Fig. 5.18 display the trajectory
tracking of the autonomous helicopter following
a rectangular path. The helicopter deviates from
the reference trajectory due to the added wind
disturbance particularly in the vertical direction.
Nevertheless, the overall results demonstrates
that despite apparent discrepancy in performance
Fig. 5.10 Estimated Velocity in East Position among the three GPS as shown by Fig. 5.10, the
tracking control performance is not affected as
much. The result is consistent both for position
and velocity tracking. The poorest or worst GPS,
which is one represented by σ2=100, shows
comparable performance as that of better GPS.
 Fig. 5.13 Comparison of East position tracking Fig. 5.16 Comparison of side velocity tracking

Fig. 5.17 Comparison of vertical velocity tracking

Fig. 5.14 Comparison of North position tracking

Fig. 5.18 Trajectory tracking

6 Concluding Remarks
Fig. 5.15 Comparison of forward velocity tracking
The study for the low-cost GPS application for
an unmanned aerial vehicle has been presented.
Within the open loop simulation, the poor GPS
can be easily differentiated from a better GPS.
When placed in the feedback loop, however, the
effect of quality of the GPS is not as prominent.
The poor quality GPS shows in general a
comparable performance to that of higher quality
GPS. In practical application, it should be noted
however that the quality of GPS is not solely
governed by the value of variance as studied in
this work. The update rate plays an important
role in determining the GPS grade and therefore
its price. More elaborate study is necessary to
investigate the effect of GPS performance in the
overall performance of an autonomous
unmanned aerial vehicle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 Brown, R.G. and Hwang, P.Y.C.,
Introduction to Random Signals and
Applied Kalman Filtering. John Wiley
and Sons, Inc., 2nd ed., 1992.
2 Budiyono, A., 27 July 2005, Design and
Development of Autonomous
Uninhabited Air Vehicles at ITB:
Challenges and Progress Status.
Aerospace Indonesia Meeting, Bandung,
Indonesia
3 Budiyono, A. dan Wibowo, S., 2005,
Optimal Tracking Controller Design for
A Small Scale Helicopter, in review
Proceeding ITB
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S.D., 2005, Design of GPS-based
Trajectory Holding System for an
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Aerospace
Science and Technology Seminar, Jakarta
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helicopter.
6 Sudyanto T., Budiyono A., Sutarto H.Y.,
July 27, 2005, Hardware In-the-loop
Simulation for Control System Designs
of Model Helicopter, Aerospace Indonesia
Meeting, Bandung