A Comprehensive Study on Drones Resilience in the Presence of Inertial Measurement Unit Faults

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have gained immense popularity for their versatility and diverse applications. However, this increased usage has raised concerns about the safety and security of UAVs, emphasizing the critical role of their Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) in ensuring accurate orientation and position data. IMU faults, including both Accelerometer faults and Gyrometer faults, can lead to severe consequences, such as mission failures, collisions, or loss of control. This study addresses the need to enhance UAV resilience in urban airspace by exploring the impact of various IMU faults. A comprehensive fault model is introduced in this paper, covering a range of faults from hardware malfunctions to external attacks. Through extensive fault injection experiments in a simulated environment, the study assesses the effects of different fault types and durations on mission outcomes, providing valuable insights for developing resilient and fault-tolerant UAV systems. Evaluation metrics, including inner and outer bubble violations, missions completed, flight duration, and distance traveled, offer a comprehensive understanding of IMU fault impacts in dynamic operational scenarios. Results reveal that longer injection durations, particularly at 30 seconds, increase bubble violations and significantly reduce mission completion rates. Accelerometer faults, such as “Accelerometer Freeze” and “Accelerometer Random” exhibit reduced mission completion rates of 42.5% and 5%, respectively. Gyrometer faults, especially “Gyrometer Minimum” and “Gyrometer Random” lead to the lowest mission completion rates (2.5%). Additionally, IMU faults (where the fault affects both the Accelerometer and Gyrometer), notably “IMU Minimum”, “IMU Freeze”, and “IMU Random” result in complete mission failures, highlighting the importance of understanding specific fault characteristics. These insights can contribute to developing fault tolerance mechanisms and resilient UAV systems in complex and dynamic environments.