A Framework for Calibrating Angular Accelerometers using a Motion Simulator

Abstract

The angular accelerometer (AA) is a relatively new type of inertial sensor which is expected to play an important role in upcoming fault tolerant flight control systems. Calibrating such sensors is not trivial because specialized calibration equipment in the form of angular acceleration motion simulators are not widely available. In this research a highgrade commercially available angular position based motion simulators is used to generate both a real acceleration motion to excite the AA as well as an accurate acceleration reference to which the measurements from the AA can be compared for calibration. Through a careful analysis of the mechanical and electronic disturbance sources as well as the dynamic properties of the motion controller a sequence of low-pass (pre) filters is designed that filter out unwanted frequency content while leaving the true angular acceleration signal intact. The filters, together with the differentiators and calibration model estimators form a novel framework that is general enough to be used in any inertial sensor calibration setup involving position based motion simulators.