An Improve Hybrid Calibration Scheme for Strapdown Inertial Navigation System

Abstract

This paper develops an improved hybrid calibration scheme for the strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS) that combines the advantages of an optimal rotational norm calibration method and an improved system-level calibration method. To accurately determine the scale factors and misalignment error of gyros triad, the optimal rotation norm calibration method is applied. Similarly, the improved system-level calibration method based on the 24-dimensional error state Kalman filter (ESKF) plays an important role in accelerometer calibration and gyro biases calibration. The clockwise and counterclockwise multi-cycles rotation scheme is designed to eliminate the effects of the Earth's rate and gyros biases, and then provide accurate rotational norm to completely determine the gyros triad scale factors and misalignment. In addition, the improved ESKF system-level calibration method is employed to estimate accelerometer parameters and gyros biases. Simulation test verify the validity of the proposed method, and the calibration experiences and the verification tests of the two high-precision optical gyros inertial measurement units (IMU) are carried out. For comparison, the traditional 30-dimensional system-level calibration is also performed. The attitude error of high maneuvering swing test indicate that the gyros calibration accuracy of hybrid calibration scheme is better than that of traditional system-level calibration scheme. Furthermore, the positioning error of pure inertial navigation solution in static and dynamic condition for two calibration methods indicate that the hybrid calibration scheme significantly improves the positioning accuracy, especially in the dynamic experiment, that is, the proposed scheme provides a more accurate calibration of the IMU.