Inexpensive Kinematic Attitude Determination from MEMS-Based Accelerometers and GPS-Derived Accelerations

CAMERON ELLUM and NASER EL-SHEIMY

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	This paper describes an inexpensive kinematic attitude determination technique that uses GPS and a triaxial accelerometer. By removing the GPS-derived accelerations from the specific forces sensed by the accelerometers, the gravity vector in body frame of the vehicle is determined. From this, roll and pitch can be calculated. Azimuth is provided by the GPS-measured trajectory. Details are given on the system components and configuration, and on the kinematic attitude determination algorithm. A test of the technique shows that the rootmean-square (RMS) error is less than 1 deg. An analysis of Taylor series finite-difference differentiators in the frequency domain is also given. From this analysis, it is shown that for second derivatives, direct differentiators are preferable to cascaded differentiators unless the suppression of high frequencies is desired.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 49, Number 3
Pages:	117 - 126
Cite this article:	ELLUM, CAMERON, EL-SHEIMY, NASER, "Inexpensive Kinematic Attitude Determination from MEMS-Based Accelerometers and GPS-Derived Accelerations", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 49, No. 3, Fall 2002, pp. 117-126.
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