Omnidirectional vision applied to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) attitude and heading estimation

11 páginas, 14 figuras, 3 tablas.-- El Pdf del artículo es la versión pre-print.This paper presents an aircraft attitude and heading estimator using catadioptric images as a principal sensor for UAV or as a redundant system for IMU (Inertial Measure Unit) and gyro sensors. First, we explain how the unified theory for central catadioptric cameras is used for attitude and heading estimation, explaining how the skyline is projected on the catadioptric image and how it is segmented and used to calculate the UAV’s attitude. Then, we use appearance images to obtain a visual compass, and we calculate the relative rotation and heading of the aerial vehicle. Finally the tests and results using the UAV COLIBRI platform and the validation of them in real flights are presented, comparing the estimated data with the inertial values measured on board.The authors would like to thank Jorge Leon for supporting the flight trials, the I.A. Institute-CSIC for collaborating in the flights, and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and Consejería de Educación de la Comunidad de Madrid and the Fondo Social Europeo (FSE) for the authors' Ph.D. funding. This work has been sponsored by the Spanish Science Technology Ministry under the Grant CICYT DPI 2007-66156.Peer reviewe