Abstract
To achieve the required navigation accuracy in some navigation applications, it is necessary to use a number of inertial sensors to obtain higher-quality acceleration/rotation rate measurements. For such redundant units, an inertial sensor fusion algorithm is required. This algorithm optimally combines all sensor outputs and generates a single inertial measurement that may be processed by any existing navigation software. In this study, a comprehensive framework for the inertial sensor fusion problem is presented for the skew-redundant inertial measurement units. An optimal sensor fusion algorithm is then developed for the skew-redundant units, where all of the inertial sensors are arbitrarily oriented in space without any lever-arm effect. An error model for the algorithm output is also derived, and it is shown that under certain conditions, the number of states for these error models can be greatly reduced. Simulation test results show that when inertial sensors with complimentary characteristics are used, the proposed fusion algorithm can be used to form high-accuracy inertial measurements, which inherit all the best characteristics of the constituent sensors in the skew-redundant units.
© de Gruyter 2011
