Attitude Estimation for Rigid Aircraft: A Distributed Finite-Time Complementary Filter With Multiple Inertial Measurement Units

Despite recent advances in attitude estimation for a single inertial measurement unit (IMU), obtaining precise attitude estimation with multiple IMUs in the presence of gyro bias remains a challenging problem. When operating with multiple IMUs, it is essential to ensure accurate and synchronized estimation across all sensors to achieve reliable attitude information. To address this, this article presents a new distributed attitude estimation algorithm for multiple IMUs under the condition of gyro bias and undirected network topology. The approach employs a finite-time complementary filter (FTCF) for gyro bias estimation, ensuring the convergence of both attitude and angular velocity to their actual values in finite time. Rigorous theoretical analysis guarantees the global finite-time stability of the closed-loop system. Extensive simulations and experiments validate the proposed method’s effectiveness in achieving rapid convergence and efficient gyro bias compensation.