A new systematic calibration method of ring laser gyroscope inertial navigation system

Inertial navigation system has been the core component of both military and civil navigation systems. Before the INS is put into application, it is supposed to be calibrated in the laboratory in order to compensate repeatability error caused by manufacturing. Discrete calibration method cannot fulfill requirements of high-accurate calibration of the mechanically dithered ring laser gyroscope navigation system with shock absorbers. This paper has analyzed theories of error inspiration and separation in detail and presented a new systematic calibration method for ring laser gyroscope inertial navigation system. Error models and equations of calibrated Inertial Measurement Unit are given. Then proper rotation arrangement orders are depicted in order to establish the linear relationships between the change of velocity errors and calibrated parameter errors. Experiments have been set up to compare the systematic errors calculated by filtering calibration result with those obtained by discrete calibration result. The largest position error and velocity error of filtering calibration result are only 0.18 miles and 0.26m/s compared with 2 miles and 1.46m/s of discrete calibration result. These results have validated the new systematic calibration method and proved its importance for optimal design and accuracy improvement of calibration of mechanically dithered ring laser gyroscope inertial navigation system.