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Posted by
scott on March 17, 2010 at 8:39am
Something has been somewhat confusing to me. No matter where I look, I cant find a straight explanation as to how autonomous aircraft stabilize themselves. I know the Ardupilot uses thermopile sensors. Do real drone aircraft use thermal horizon sensors? I know gyros are commonplace though. As for the IMU, I realize since its internal and gyro based, there has to be some drift. How is the drift reduced to the point where it can be used to fly an aircraft? It it used in conjunction with other sensors to get more points of reference then mix itself in with programming? Somewhat like being able to auto recalibrate in flight? Or is it kind of like a traditional model aircraft gyro, where it just stabilizes flight against unwanted movement. How much of an improvement in stability can an ArduIMU offer over just thermal sensors? I will not be using them anytime soon, I think they are not yet implemented fully as for the open code, but I am just curious. Are there any other sensors commonly used in UAV type aircraft in general?
I wish I could find a good overall guide or explanation for UAV stabilization.
Replies
Then once you have a stable attitude solution, you use that to keep the wings level using a negative feedback loop of the error. IE: if you want to keep the wings level and they are not then move the ailerons to correct in the opposite direction