Spatial attitude determination framework by globally and asymptotically stable estimation of gyroscope bias error with disturbance attenuation and rejection

This paper presents a new methodology of attitude estimation for cost-effective and small-size inertial measurement units, consisting of tri-axial gyroscope sensors, accelerometers and geo-magnetometers. Introduced for the algorithm development is a quaternion feedback structure, where bias terms in the gyroscope rate information, appearing in the phase-locked loop, are identified with the theoretical guarantee of the global and asymptotical stability. The bias-term identification and modification process is performed continuously without the influence of the disturbance by applying the proposed disturbance detection scheme and a conventional vector matching method. Practical validity of the presented framework is fully evaluated by experiments. The evaluation result shows that the approach in this paper can offer superior drift-free performance with property of disturbance rejection under arbitrary high-frequency test motion of spatial rotation and translation. © 2011 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.