Optimal Configuration Based on Lever Arm Effect Rejection Performance Index for Redundant Inertial Sensors

Redundant inertial sensor systems improve navigation performance and guarantee fault detection or fault isolation functions. However, they may cause unexpected side effects owing to their enlarged size. The misalignment between the center of gravity of the sensor system and the rotational origin of the vehicle results in the lever arm effect inducing significant acceleration errors. To minimize the lever arm effect error, the configuration of redundant sensors should be carefully considered, as their performance is highly dependent on its configuration. Thus, the figure-of-merit (FOM), which is considered a performance index or cost function, is proposed to obtain the optimal configuration for minimizing the lever arm effect error. Further, to define an FOM, the angular velocity and angular acceleration are considered as random variables and to quantify them, they were replaced as variances. The lever arm effect error was found to be completely eliminated when a redundant inertial measurement unit (RIMU) with more than eight single-axis inertial sensors was configured using the proposed FOM. Further, a case study and simulation were conducted to verify the proposed FOM and configuration, and it was found that the proposed FOM can be used to obtain the optimal configuration of the RIMU and as an indicator of the lever arm effect error.