In-Motion Calibration and Testing of MEMS Sensors Using a Reference Inertial Satellite Navigation System

Abstract

A two-stage calibration of inertial micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) sensors is considered. In this paper, such sensors are gyroscopes and accelerometers, oriented along three orthogonal axes and placed in a single inertial measurement module. The first stage of calibration is carried out in the factory at the bench without linear overloads. The second stage is implemented in a dynamic mode in a mobile laboratory that provides linear overloads. At this stage, the drifts of the sensor signals are estimated, as well as the skews of their measuring axes, which remained after the factory calibration. In addition, structural and parametric identification of dynamic models of sensor signal drifts is performed. Such models are used to compensate for the errors of MEMS sensors in autonomous inertial navigation modes, including the loss of satellite signals. The errors of MEMS sensors in motion are estimated using information from the reference inertial satellite navigation system and the extended Kalman filter. The results of full-scale experiments are analyzed.