Calibration and performance evaluation of low-cost IMUs

Alberto Pretto, Giorgio Grisetti
Abstract:
IMUs (Inertial Measurement Units) are extensively used in many robotics applications such as navigation and mapping tasks. In almost all these systems, inertial measurements are fused with data coming from other sensors (e.g., GPS sensors, range finders, cameras, . . . ). For better results, the IMU should be carefully calibrated, in order to minimize the propagation of systematic errors. But what happens if for brief periods data coming from the other sensors are missing? Can we trust the IMU in these cases? In this paper, we present a robust and simple method to calibrate an IMU without any external equipment. We then use the calibration results to analyze the behavior of two types of MEMS based IMUs employed as a single sensor in full 3D orientation and egomotion estimation tasks.
Keywords:
Inertial measurement unit calibration, Inertial navigation, Low cost inertial sensors
Download:
IMEKO-TC4-2014-429.pdf
DOI:
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Event details
IMEKO TC:
TC4
Event name:
TC4 Symposium 2014
Title:

20th IMEKO TC4 Symposium on Measurements of Electrical Quantities (together with 18th TC4 International Workshop on ADC and DCA Modeling and Testing, IWADC)
"Research on Electrical and Electronic Measurement for the Economic Upturn"

Place:
Benevento, ITALY
Time:
15 September 2014 - 17 September 2014