A Modular Windows-Based Intelligent API for Traceable Drone Positioning Using UWB-OptiTrack Fusion and AI-Based Residual Learning

Ihtisham Ul Haq, Luigi D’Alfonso, Giuseppe Fedele, Francesco Lamonaca
Abstract:
Accurate and traceable drone positioning is crucial for autonomous aerial navigation, especially in GNSS-denied environments. Traditional approaches using Ultra-Wideband (UWB) sensors or Kalman Filters (KF) struggle with multipath interference, non-line-of-sight, and environmental uncertainties, and are often limited to Linux-based Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This work presents an innovative framework based on: a novel modular Windows-based API for real-time drone positioning, the integration of Kalman filter for optimal multi-sensor data fusion and trajectory smoothing, AI-driven residual learning to correct systematic estimation errors, and metrology-compliant uncertainty modeling. The system enables real-time swarm deployment and pose-aware feedback using an auxiliary vision based positioning system (OptiTrack) and UWB data. A feedforward neural network compensates for residual errors in Kalman-filtered trajectories, while Monte Carlo simulations establish traceable 95% confidence intervals. Experimental tests show that the proposed framework reduces RMSE by over 40% across axes, with strong regression accuracy greater than 94%.
Download:
IMEKO-TC6-2025-061.pdf
DOI:
10.21014/tc6-2025.061
Event details
IMEKO TC:
TC6
Event name:
TC6 M4Dconf2025
Title:

2025 IMEKO TC-6 International Conference on Metrology and Digital Transformation

Place:
Benevento, ITALY
Time:
03 September 2025 - 05 September 2025