Comparison of Configurations of Inertial Measurement Units for Determination of Motion Parameters of Mobile Robots - Part 2: Experimental Investigations

The paper is concerned with the problem of determination of motion parameters of a mobile robot using Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) in three different configurations. The practical goal of this research is investigation of possibilities of improvement of quality of data obtained from a 3D scanning head thanks to the application of information about motion parameters of the robot in a cost effective way. PIAP GRANITE four-wheeled skid-steered mobile robot was used as a mobile platform for the investigations. In Part 1 of the paper, the three configurations of IMUs are discussed and formulas for obtaining the motion parameters are given. In Part 2, methods discussed in Part 1 are compared experimentally. Main metrological properties of the IMUs used during experiments are provided. The precisions of measurements for particular configurations of IMUs were estimated using the introduced quality indexes. Main findings are stated in the conclusion.