New observer-based UAV attitude controller with gyroscopic bias estimation

This paper addresses the problem of global attitude control, in quaternion space for a small UAV equipped with a low cost IMU. The proposed controller is based on a new observer that estimates the true angular velocity from the biased measurements fed by a low cost IMU. The observer based controller is synthesized based on a single Lyapunov function and stability analysis shows that UAV attitude converges globally asymptotically towards the desired attitude trajectory. Simulation results including realistic robustness tests illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.