Attitude Determination Using a Multi-antenna GNSS Receiver Tightly Integrated with a MEMS IMU

Jose F.M. Lorga, Pedro F. Silva, Joao S. Silva, and Antonio Fernandez

Abstract:	Nowadays, attitude information is necessary in land, maritime, aerial, and space applications. This attitude information is commonly determined using two distinct approaches. The first uses expensive inertial sensors typically aided with GNSS technology, while the second, one or more high-end GNSS receivers connected to multiple GNSS antennas. Previous studies showed the possibility to match the estimated position and velocity from a Closely Coupled integration using a high grade Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) with the ones from a Tightly Coupled (TC) integration using a low grade IMU, [1]. In these previous studies was also shown that the use of higher grade IMU always led to a superior quality of the estimated attitude. Consequently, when high quality attitude data are necessary and the cost is a sensitive issue, the low cost inertial sensors integrated with GNSS sensors alone are not the solution. The present paper proposes a solution for this limitation introduced by the use of low grade inertial sensors. The proposed solution is characterized by assisting a conventional TC integration using a low cost system with attitude previously estimated by a multi-antenna GNSS system. Two different GNSS attitude methods are described and evaluated. The selected method is used to successfully demonstrate the proposed concept, which is a very cost-effective solution for applications where high quality information is required.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 20th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2007) September 25 - 28, 2007 Fort Worth Convention Center Fort Worth, TX
Pages:	2102 - 2112
Cite this article:	Lorga, Jose F.M., Silva, Pedro F., Silva, Joao S., Fernandez, Antonio, "Attitude Determination Using a Multi-antenna GNSS Receiver Tightly Integrated with a MEMS IMU," Proceedings of the 20th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2007), Fort Worth, TX, September 2007, pp. 2102-2112.
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