Application of the attitude estimation of the four-rotor aircraft based on quaternion and complementary filter

In this paper, using the data obtained by inertial measurement unit (IMU), such as accelerometer, gyroscope and electronic compass, based on quaternion and complementary filter calculate out the four-rotor aircraft spatial attitude. Compared with other methods, quaternion method has no gimbal locks and can be used to calculate the entire aircraft attitude; complementary filter method has small amount of calculation, it needs low computing performance for the MCU. The method can filter out the high-frequency interference of the accelerometer, electronic compass, integral drift of gyroscopes and other Interference components. The method takes advantage of all sensors and achieves good results in the attitude solution, meeting the control requirements of the four-rotor aircraft.