Multi-sensor Inertial Navigation Systems Employing Skewed Redundant Inertial Sensors

A. Osman, B. Wright, A. Noureldin, N. El-Sheimy

Abstract:	Multi-sensor Inertial Navigation Systems (MINS) are inertial navigation systems employing multiple sensors that are arranged in a certain topology determined by the system design. MINS mainly introduces redundancy in measurements which can be achieved by using either an orthogonal configuration of the Inertial Measuring Unit (IMU) with respect to body axes or a non-orthogonal configuration known as skew redundant. This paper investigates the implementation issues associated with the Skew Redundant IMUs (SRIMUs) and their effect on the performance of MINS in the case of using Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) inertial sensors. The paper main emphasis will be on the use of redundant sensor information to enhance the overall performance of the navigation system. For performing the analysis, two IMU/GPS kinematic land-vehicle tests with a navigationgrade and MEMS IMUs are used. The performance of the SRIMU is investigated through simulating SRIMU MEMS kinematic signals with different number of sensors and system configurations using the kinematic data emulation method where MEMS static signals are grafted onto a navigation-grade IMU real kinematic data. Moreover, a prototype SRIMU developed by the Mobile Multi-Sensor Systems (MMSS) research group at the University of Calgary will be introduced and shown. Compared to the commonly used orthogonal 3-axis MEMS IMUs with three accelerometers and three gyros, the results showed that the navigation performance of SRIMUs is very promising and the accuracy is proportional to the number of sensors used.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2006) September 26 - 29, 2006 Fort Worth Convention Center Fort Worth, TX
Pages:	2202 - 2207
Cite this article:	Osman, A., Wright, B., Noureldin, A., El-Sheimy, N., "Multi-sensor Inertial Navigation Systems Employing Skewed Redundant Inertial Sensors," Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2006), Fort Worth, TX, September 2006, pp. 2202-2207.
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