Calibration of Skew Redundant Sensor Configurations in the Presence of Field Alignment Errors

Abstract

This paper is a nontrivial extension of prior work on rate and position table leveling and inertial and magnetic sensors calibration techniques. The table leveling is essential for a class of calibration techniques using known stimuli, herein referred to as classical techniques. Such techniques are effective for the calibration of inertial sensors as they usually lead to closed-form solutions and body frame calibrations. However, the classical techniques are negatively affected by table leveling and azimuth orientation errors or by changes in the direction of the reference field. These errors are collectively referred to as field alignment errors in this paper. The impact of field alignment errors is usually avoided by using reference-free calibrations which rely on satisfying the invariance of the field modulus constraint. This constraint works well for orthogonal sensor triads as it leads to unique solutions. There is a great body of work dedicated to studying such calibration techniques for orthogonal sensor triads. However, redundant sensor configurations have too many degrees of freedom to satisfy the invariance of the modulus constraint; therefore, require special techniques. This paper introduces a novel approach that can be used to produce body frame calibrations for skew redundant sensor configurations in the presence of field alignment errors. Unlike prior work, no simplifying assumptions are made on the redundant sensor configuration (e.g., multiple orthogonal triads). The new method is showcased for the dodecahedron configuration, one of the most complex skew redundant configurations.