Yes and no. The math here is useful, albeit not required. It is not specialized PhD material; it's linear algebra. (And not the abstract quantum mechanics/chem kind!)
What I mean by not required is, I've written drone firmware and didn't directly use this; the core can be done with a PID for rate controls (Compare measured rate along each axis with commanded; nudge motor power proportional to the diff), and commanding attitudes can be done with fundamental quaternion operations, as a slower outer loop.
I would skip the Tait-Bryan stuff in the article, in favor of pure quaternions. Actually, I'm kind of floored the word "quaternion" doesn't appear in the article.
What I mean by not required is, I've written drone firmware and didn't directly use this; the core can be done with a PID for rate controls (Compare measured rate along each axis with commanded; nudge motor power proportional to the diff), and commanding attitudes can be done with fundamental quaternion operations, as a slower outer loop.
I would skip the Tait-Bryan stuff in the article, in favor of pure quaternions. Actually, I'm kind of floored the word "quaternion" doesn't appear in the article.