A Low-Cost, Redundant Inertial Measurement Unit for Unmanned Air Vehicles

This paper discusses the development of a low-cost, redundant, strapdown inertial measurement unit (IMU). The unit comprises four ceramic vibrating structure gyroscopes and four QLC 400 accelerometers configured on a truncated tetrahedron design. This design allows for the optimal configuration of the eight sensors, which in turn provides for a theoretical 33% increase in information. The redundant sensor configuration also allows for fault detection, which is required for many autonomous applications. This initiative is a precursor for future developments with more sensors to provide fault isolation. The paper will also present a navigation system implementing the redundant IMU with the global positioning system. Results are provided of this navigation system being implemented in an unmanned air vehicle.