FUSE-D: Framework for UAV System-Parameter Estimation with Disturbance Detection

Modern unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with sophisticated mechanics ask for extended online system identification to aid model-based controls in task execution. In addition, UAVs in adverse environmental conditions require a more detailed environmental disturbance understanding. The necessary combination of online system identification, sensor suite self-calibration, and external disturbance analysis to tackle these issues holistically is currently an open issue. Our proposed FUSE-D approach combines these elements based on a system model at the rotor-speed level and a single global pose sensor (e.g., a tracking system like Optitrack). Besides sensor intrinsics and extrinsics, the framework allows estimating the UAV's rotor geometry, mass, moments of inertia, and the rotors' aerodynamic properties, as well as an external force and where it acts on the UAV. The general formulation allows us to extend the approach to an N-rotor (multi-rotor) UAV and classify the type of external disturbance. We perform a detailed non-linear observability analysis for the 43 + 7N states and do a statistically relevant embedded hardware-in-the-loop performance analysis in the realistic simulation environment Gazebo with RotorS.