Differential Inertial Filter for Dynamic Sensor Alignment

Neal A. Carlson, Ronald T. Kelley, Sandra L. Beming

Abstract:	The Differential Inertial Filter (DIF) estimates the in-flight alignment of mission sensors and weapons mounted on modern aircraft with dynamically flexing structures. Sensor/weapon attitude is defined by the instrument frame of a local inertial measurement unit (IMU). Misalignments are defined relative to the instrument frame of the reference inertial navigation system (INS). Differences between the IMU and INS acceler- ometer and gyro outputs provide a measure of the IMU/INS angular misalignment. The DIF is a Kalman filter that em- ploys accelerometer and gyro difference measurements to estimate the local misalignment angle components. Linear and angular vibration at the IMU location comprise the dominant sources of measurement noise. IMU and INS errors comprise smaller but important error sources. The DIF filter design for this challenging estimation problem is described, and simulated performance results are presented. DIF estimation accuracy capabilities are summarized for three repesentative locations on an advanced tactical aircraft.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 24 - 26, 1994 Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	341 - 351
Cite this article:	Carlson, Neal A., Kelley, Ronald T., Beming, Sandra L., "Differential Inertial Filter for Dynamic Sensor Alignment," Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Diego, CA, January 1994, pp. 341-351.
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