Low-Cost MEMS Gyroscope-Driven Measurement System for Real-Time Aircraft Attitude Dynamics

Monitoring and controlling an aircraft's flight attitude remotely is a critical technology used in real-time applications. Keeping track of the yaw, roll, and pitch of an aircraft during flight is essential for maintaining stability and ensuring safety with efficient flight operations. This helps the pilot onboard monitor the flight dynamics, which helps the pilots accurately determine the angles needed for take-off and landing. Presently modern systems in many areas often rely on MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems)-based gyroscopes, which are both cost-effective and highly accurate for measuring these flight dynamics. In this work, a low-cost, commercially available 3-axis MEMS gyroscope was used to develop a system on the Arduino platform for continuously monitoring the yaw, roll, and pitch of a hand-made model aircraft. To enhance the accuracy of measurements, digital signal processing (DSP) incorporates both low-pass and high-pass filters in its algorithm. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) in the MATLAB platform was also developed to display the yaw, roll, and pitch of an aircraft in real time. The performance of this setup was then compared to readings from a reference high-accuracy digital inclinometer.