Miniature MEMS Quartz INS/GPS Description and Performance Attributes

Randall Jaffe, Scott Bonomi and Asad M. Madni

Abstract:	The Systron Donner Inertial Division (SDID) of BEI Technologies, Inc. has developed a family of inertial systems that exploit the low cost, high reliability, and excellent performance of the Quartz MEMS fabrication process. This paper presents performance improvements made to the C-MIGITS? III, and introduces the MMQ-G, a low cost high performance INS/GPS navigation system. The C-MIGITS combines high accuracy inertial sensors (sub degree per hour performance), with a commercially available 12- channel GPS receiver. Whereas the MMQ-G achieves high levels of performance using low priced inertial components that are being produced at volumes approaching four million sensors per year, with one of the latest low cost 12 channel GPS receivers available. The MMQ-G is a model of design reuse. All of the major subsystems have been developed for other products and are currently in production. This reuse concept decreased the development effort and the project’s risk. It also resulted in a lower priced final product, not only because much of the non-recurring cost had already been expended and was distributed among many different products, but the recurring manufacturing and engineering support will benefit from the increased volume associated with the shared use of the primary subsystems utilized in the MMQ-G. Some of the elements that the MMQ-G shares with other products are: 1) The quartz inertial sensing element, which was developed for automotive applications and is currently utilized in the braking systems of over 50 different automotive platforms. 2) The rate sensor electronics, which were designed to optimize the performance of the high volume automotive rate sensor for aerospace and military environments. 3) The acceleration channel which is already in production at a rate in excess of 10,000 units per year. 4) The MMQ-G’s mechanical and electrical design which was converted from the MMQ50 IMU. 5) The 28 state Kalman Filter and navigation mechanization, which was successfully adapted from the C-MIGITS III navigation system. This paper concludes with a performance comparison between the C-MIGITS III and the MMQ-G. Both IMUs use equivalent GPS receivers; employ the same navigation and Kalman Filter mechanization; the primary difference being the size and performance of the inertial sensor assembly.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 17th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2004) September 21 - 24, 2004 Long Beach Convention Center Long Beach, CA
Pages:	852 - 863
Cite this article:	Jaffe, Randall, Bonomi, Scott, Madni, Asad M., "Miniature MEMS Quartz INS/GPS Description and Performance Attributes," Proceedings of the 17th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2004), Long Beach, CA, September 2004, pp. 852-863.
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