Real-time wind estimation on a micro unmanned aerial vehicle using its inertial measurement unit

• Wind vector estimation in real-time based on the micro UAV's on-board sensors only.
• No additional airspeed sensor or dedicated anemometer is needed.
• Wind tunnel and field tests are used to evaluate the performance of the approach.

This paper presents an approach for a quadrocoper-based micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that estimates the wind vector (speed and direction) in real-time based on measurement data of its on-board sensors only. This method does not need any additional airspeed sensor or dedicated anemometer, and thus the micro UAV's valuable payload remains free for other sensors. Wind tunnel and field tests were used to evaluate the performance of the approach. In order to quantify its accuracy, experiments are presented where data was collected with an anemometer placed in an open field with the micro UAV in flight following a predefined trajectory around the anemometer and hovering at a defined position close to it.