An Optimal Estimation Approach for MEMS INS Performance Improvements Based on Single-FOG Monitoring

A new approach is proposed for MEMS inertial navigation system (INS) performance improvement, which uses a fiber optic gyro (FOG) to monitor the triad of MEMS gyros and compensates the errors of the MEMS INS in real time by using an elaborated Kalman filter. A state-space model of single-FOG monitored MEMS INS is developed, and the observability of the model is analyzed for the Kalman filter. Simulated and experimental tests are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The test results show that this method can effectively reduce the errors of the MEMS gyros and dramatically improve the initial alignment and navigation performances of the MEMS INS.