Xiyuan Chen

Performance analysis of improved iterated cubature Kalman filter and its application to GNSS/INS

In order to improve the accuracy and robustness of GNSS/INS navigation system, an improved iterated cubature Kalman filter (IICKF) is proposed by considering the state-dependent noise and system uncertainty. First, a simplified framework of iterated Gaussian filter is derived by using damped Newton-Raphson algorithm and online noise estimator. Then the effect of state-dependent noise coming from iterated update is analyzed theoretically, and an augmented form of CKF algorithm is applied to improve the estimation accuracy. The performance of IICKF is verified by field test and numerical simulation, and results reveal that, compared with non-iterated filter, iterated filter is less sensitive to the system uncertainty, and IICKF improves the accuracy of yaw, roll and pitch by 48.9%, 73.1% and 83.3%, respectively, compared with traditional iterated KF.

High accuracy navigation information estimation for inertial system using the multi-model EKF fusing adams explicit formula applied to underwater gliders

The underwater navigation system, mainly consisting of MEMS inertial sensors, is a key technology for the wide application of underwater gliders and plays an important role in achieving high accuracy navigation and positioning for a long time of period. However, the navigation errors will accumulate over time because of the inherent errors of inertial sensors, especially for MEMS grade IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) generally used in gliders. The dead reckoning module is added to compensate the errors. In the complicated underwater environment, the performance of MEMS sensors is degraded sharply and the errors will become much larger. It is difficult to establish the accurate and fixed error model for the inertial sensor. Therefore, it is very hard to improve the accuracy of navigation information calculated by sensors. In order to solve the problem mentioned, the more suitable filter which integrates the multi-model method with an EKF approach can be designed according to different error models to give the optimal estimation for the state. The key parameters of error models can be used to determine the corresponding filter. The Adams explicit formula which has an advantage of high precision prediction is simultaneously fused into the above filter to achieve the much more improvement in attitudes estimation accuracy. The proposed algorithm has been proved through theory analyses and has been tested by both vehicle experiments and lake trials. Results show that the proposed method has better accuracy and effectiveness in terms of attitudes estimation compared with other methods mentioned in the paper for inertial navigation applied to underwater gliders.

Study of the algorithm of backtracking decoupling and adaptive extended Kalman filter based on the quaternion expanded to the state variable for underwater glider navigation.

High accuracy attitude and position determination is very important for underwater gliders. The cross-coupling among three attitude angles (heading angle, pitch angle and roll angle) becomes more serious when pitch or roll motion occurs. This cross-coupling makes attitude angles inaccurate or even erroneous. Therefore, the high accuracy attitude and position determination becomes a difficult problem for a practical underwater glider. To solve this problem, this paper proposes backing decoupling and adaptive extended Kalman filter (EKF) based on the quaternion expanded to the state variable (BD-AEKF). The backtracking decoupling can eliminate effectively the cross-coupling among the three attitudes when pitch or roll motion occurs. After decoupling, the adaptive extended Kalman filter (AEKF) based on quaternion expanded to the state variable further smoothes the filtering output to improve the accuracy and stability of attitude and position determination. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed BD-AEKF method, the pitch and roll motion are simulated and the proposed method performance is analyzed and compared with the traditional method. Simulation results demonstrate the proposed BD-AEKF performs better. Furthermore, for further verification, a new underwater navigation system is designed, and the three-axis non-magnetic turn table experiments and the vehicle experiments are done. The results show that the proposed BD-AEKF is effective in eliminating cross-coupling and reducing the errors compared with the conventional method.

A Novel Calibration Method Research of the Scale Factor for the All-optical Atomic Spin Inertial Measurement Device

School of Instrument Science and Opto-Electronics Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China(Received March 23, 2015 : revised June 9, 2015 : accepted July 6, 2015)A novel method to measure the scale factor for the all-optical atomic spin inertial measurement device (ASIMD) is demonstrated in this paper. The method can realize the calibration of the scale factor by a self-consistent method with small errors in the quiescent state. At first, the matured IMU (inertial measurement unit) device was fixed on an optical platform together with the ASIMD, and it has been used to calibrate the scale factor for the ASIMD. The results show that there were some errors causing the inaccuracy of the experiment. By the comparative analysis of theory and experiment, the ASIMD was unable to keep pace with the IMU. Considering the characteristics of the ASIMD, the mismatch between the driven frequency of the optical platform and the bandwidth of the ASIMD was the major reason. An all-optical atomic spin magnetometer was set up at first. The sensitivity of the magnetometer is ultra-high, and it can be used to detect the magnetization of spin-polarized noble gas. The gyromagnetic ratio of the noble gas is a physical constant, and it has already been measured accurately. So a novel calibration method for scale factor based on the gyromagnetic ratio has been presented. The relevant theoretical analysis and experiments have been implemented. The results showed that the scale factor of the device was 7.272 V/°/s by multi-group experiments with the maximum error value 0.49%.Keywords : Scale factor, All-optical, Atomic spin, Inertial measurement deviceOCIS codes : (230.1150) All-optical devices; (230.5160) Photo detectors; (280.4788) Optical sensing and sensors; (020.1335) Atom optics

Attitude Determination for Underwater Gliders Using Unscented Kalman Filter Based on Smooth Variable Algorithm

ABSTRACT Huang, H.; Chen, X.; Zhou, Z., and Lv, C., 2015. Attitude determination for underwater gliders using unscented Kalman filter based on smooth variable algorithm. For improving the attitude accuracy using the lower cost and lower power underwater navigation system, this paper proposes the new underwater navigation system which is composed of the inertial sensors aided with the magnetometer, and the unscented Kalman filter based on smooth variable algorithm (UKF-SV) is proposed to improve the attitude accuracy for the underwater glider. The UKF-SV makes use of the advantage of UKF (unscented Kalman filter) in the nonlinear model to estimate attitudes and then smoothes the variables estimated by UKF. Through this process, the attitude accuracy can be greatly improved. The convergence of UKF-SV is proven in theory. The static and dynamic experiments are done to assess the performance of UKF-SV and compare with the traditional UKF. The experiment results show that the performance of UKF-SV is better than the traditional UKF.

On-site monitoring of atomic density number for an all-optical atomic magnetometer based on atomic spin exchange relaxation

We present a method for monitoring the atomic density number on site based on atomic spin exchange relaxation. When the spin polarization P ≪ 1, the atomic density numbers could be estimated by measuring magnetic resonance linewidth in an applied DC magnetic field by using an all-optical atomic magnetometer. The density measurement results showed that the experimental results the theoretical predictions had a good consistency in the investigated temperature range from 413 K to 463 K, while, the experimental results were approximately 1.5 ∼ 2 times less than the theoretical predictions estimated from the saturated vapor pressure curve. These deviations were mainly induced by the radiative heat transfer efficiency, which inevitably leaded to a lower temperature in cell than the setting temperature.

Robust cubature Kalman filter for GNSS/INS with missing observations and colored measurement noise

In order to improve the accuracy of GNSS/INS working in GNSS-denied environment, a robust cubature Kalman filter (RCKF) is developed by considering colored measurement noise and missing observations. First, an improved cubature Kalman filter (CKF) is derived by considering colored measurement noise, where the time-differencing approach is applied to yield new observations. Then, after analyzing the disadvantages of existing methods, the measurement augment in processing colored noise is translated into processing the uncertainties of CKF, and new sigma point update framework is utilized to account for the bounded model uncertainties. By reusing the diffused sigma points and approximation residual in the prediction stage of CKF, the RCKF is developed and its error performance is analyzed theoretically. Results of numerical experiment and field test reveal that RCKF is more robust than CKF and extended Kalman filter (EKF), and compared with EKF, the heading error of land vehicle is reduced by about 72.4%.

Iterated square root cubature kalman filter with application to tightly coupled GNSS/INS

An iterated filtering method is presented to improve the update stage of nonlinear filtering. First, we develop a generalized iterative framework for sigma point kalman filter by utilizing Gauss-Newton algorithm. A simplified iterated square root cubature kalman filter (SCKF) is proposed with application to tightly coupled GNSS/INS, where the linear combination of innovations is used in measurement update. Numerical experiment and field test results indicate that SCKF has similar performance with extended kalman filter. Compared with the non-iterated methods, iterated SCKF improves the heading by 23.6% with two iterations, and get a faster convergence rate regarding heading and velocity.

Measurement Sensitivity Improvement of All-Optical Atomic Spin Magnetometer by Suppressing Noises

Quantum manipulation technology and photoelectric detection technology have jointly facilitated the rapid development of ultra-sensitive atomic spin magnetometers. To improve the output signal and sensitivity of the spin-exchange-relaxation-free (SERF) atomic spin magnetometer, the noises influencing on the output signal and the sensitivity were analyzed, and the corresponding noise suppression methods were presented. The magnetic field noises, including the residual magnetic field noise and the light shift noise, were reduced to approximately zero by employing the magnetic field compensation method and by adjusting the frequency of the pump beam, respectively. With respect to the operation temperature, the simulation results showed that the temperature of the potassium atomic spin magnetometer realizing the spin-exchange relaxation-free regime was 180 °C. Moreover, the fluctuation noises of the frequency and the power were suppressed by using the frequency and the power stable systems. The experimental power stability results showed that the light intensity stability was enhanced 10%. Contrast experiments on the sensitivity were carried out to demonstrate the validity of the suppression methods. Finally, a sensitivity of 13 fT/Hz1/2 was successfully achieved by suppressing noises and optimizing parameters.

Ultra-sensitive atomic magnetometer for studying magnetization fields produced by hyperpolarized helium-3

An ingenious approach to acquire the absolute magnetization fields produced by polarized atoms has been presented in this paper. The method was based on detection of spin precession signal of the hyperpolarized helium-3 with ultra-sensitive atomic magnetometer of potassium by referring to time-domain analysis. At first, dynamic responses of the mixed spin ensembles in the presence of variant external magnetic fields have been analyzed by referring to the Bloch equation. Subsequently, the relevant equipment was established to achieve the functions of hyperpolarizing helium-3 and detecting the precession of spin-polarized noble gas. By analyzing the transient response of the magnetometer in time domain, we obtained the relevant damping ratio and natural frequency. When the value of damping ratio reached the maximum value of 0.0917, the combined atomic magnetometer was in equilibrium. We draw a conclusion from the steady response: the magnetization fields of the polarized electrons and the hyperpolarized nuclei were corresponding 16.12 nT and 90.74 nT. Under this situation, the nuclear magnetization field could offset disturbing magnetic fields perpendicular to the orientation of the electronic polarization, and it preserved the electronic spin staying in a stable axis. Therefore, the combined magnetometer was particularly attractive for inertial measurements.