Attitude measure system based on extended Kalman filter for multi-rotors

[Display omitted] •An attitude measure system based on STM32 controller, MEMS gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer for three-axis attitude measure of multi-rotors was constructed.•A sensor fusion quaternion-based extended Kalman filter compliant with this system was proposed.•The optimized covariance value combination was obtained to improve the accuracy of attitude estimation.•The measure system was testified and analyzed by static and dynamic tests. It realized precision attitude measure for multi-rotors in dynamic circumstances and lay foundation for UAV remote control. Attitude measure is the basis of multi-rotors flight control. An attitude measure system was constructed based on MEMS gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer to realize three-axis attitude measure of multi-rotors. The system included STM32F103 as controller, integrated accelerometer and gyroscope MPU6050, magnetometer HMC5883 as measure sensors. A sensor fusion quaternion-based extended Kalman filter compliant with this system was proposed. The attitude quaternion and the gyroscope bias were introduced as state vector, the acceleration and the magnetic measured by accelerometer and magnetometer were introduced as observation vector. Extended Kalman filter combined the nice performance of gyroscope in dynamic with accelerometer and magnetometer in static. The optimized covariance value combination can improve the accuracy of attitude estimation and had excellent tracking performance in dynamic. The measure system based on extended Kalman filter was testified and analyzed by static and dynamic tests. Experiment results illustrated that the system can obtain the information of each sensor. The attitude measure system based on extended Kalman filter realized precision attitude measure for multi-rotors in dynamic circumstances. It may lay foundation for UAV remote control.