Relative Measurement of Micro-UAVs Based on a Miniaturized 2D Profile Sensor System

Relative positioning serves as one of the key tech-nologies for the autonomous flight of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms. The mainstream vision-based methods in existing studies have high demands for computing power, energy, and size. When deployed on UAVs, especially micro-UAVs of several hundred grams, their accuracy and update rate are limited. In this study, we have developed a miniaturized high-precision relative measurement system utilizing a 2D profile sensor. The system achieves a relative angle measurement accuracy of around 1°. The results are fused with onboard ultra-wideband (UWB) system. Experiment results indicate the fusion system reaches a centimeter-level relative positioning accuracy, providing accurate relative coordinates for micro-UAV swarm cooperative missions.