A Light Weight, Mini Inertial Measurement System for Position and Attitude Estimation on Dynamic Platforms

Impact Technologies, LLC in collaboration with the Rochester Institute of Technology, proposes to develop and demonstrate a flight-worthy hardware prototype of a miniature, low cost/weight/ power device that provides stable and highly accurate near continuous positioning, attitude, and inertial measurements while being subjected to highly dynamic maneuvers and high vibration effects. In contrast to conventional methods that utilize either unreliable magnetic field sensors or extensive ground-based real-time tracking and control units that are expensive, large and power-consuming to operate, our innovative design focuses on identifying the gravitational vector onboard in real-time to bound sensor drift errors to achieve high degree of accuracy. The objective is achieved by a unique design that combines a dual-arc low-cost accelerometer array with three-axis rate gyros and GPS. Advanced filtering techniques such as the Unscented Kalman Filter are proposed to estimate sensor bias and drift effects. High vibration effects are estimated and eliminated by subtracting the imposed loading from the accelerometer measurements to provide a highly robust system in the presence of highly dynamical and vibrational conditions. Testing of the prototype system includes shaker table laboratory and hardware-in-the-loop tests along with an optional relevant vehicle platform test with support from NASA.