An Improved Method for Measuring the Height of Quad-rotor Aircraft

Abstract

The air pressure sensor provides high-precision height information by temperature compensation, but it is easily interfered by environment, and the precision is decreased by the height. This paper presents a new approach for measuring the height of quad-rotor aircraft, using the air pressure senor, GPS and accelerometer data. The proposed algorithm which is based on discrete Kalman filtering results in eliminating interference from environmental change on the air pressure sensor. The algorithm was tested extensively in simulations and experiments, the results show that this method can get more accurate height information, and fully meet the demands of flight control of quad-rotor aircraft.