Quantifying the Uncertainty of the Relative Geometry in Inertial Sensors Arrays

Abstract

We present an algorithm to estimate and quantify the uncertainty of the accelerometers' relative geometry in an inertial sensor array. We formulate the calibration problem as a Bayesian estimation problem and propose an algorithm that samples the accelerometer positions' posterior distribution using Markov chain Monte Carlo. By identifying linear substructures of the measurement model, the unknown linear motion parameters are analytically marginalized, and the remaining non-linear motion parameters are numerically marginalized. The numerical marginalization occurs in a low dimensional space where the gyroscopes give information about the motion. This combination of information from gyroscopes and analytical marginalization allows the user to make no assumptions of the motion before the calibration. It thus enables the user to estimate the accelerometer positions' relative geometry by simply exposing the array to arbitrary twisting motion. We show that the calibration algorithm gives good results on both simulated and experimental data, despite sampling a high dimensional space.