Calibration and data fusion solution for the miniature attitude and heading reference system

Development, calibration and alignment of a miniature magnetic and inertial measurement unit, which is used as an attitude and heading reference system, are presented. Several guidelines were followed during the design process to make the magnetic and inertial measurement unit suitable for various kinds of applications, thus the system is designed both as small as possible but still modular, consisting of three inertial sensor units, a magnetic sensor unit and a control unit. Complete calibration and alignment procedure is described and an adaptive Kalman filter concept for fusing various sensors' attitude and heading data is introduced and discussed. The characteristics of the magnetic and inertial measurement unit as an attitude and heading reference system are evaluated. The algorithm showed remarkable performance in the orientation determination as the average root mean square error was less than 1.2 degrees over the entire appliable operating range. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.