Journal of Beiji ng Instit ute of Technology , 2002 , Vol. 11 , No .

Error Analysis and Compensation of Strapdo wn Inertial

Navigation System
L IU Qin , 　L IU Li , 　Q I Zai2kang
( School of Mechano2Electronics Engineering , Beijing Institute of Technology , Beijing 100081 , China)

Abstract : Based on error analysis , t he influence of error sources on strapdown inertial navigation systems is dis2
cussed. And t he maximum permissible component tolerances are established. In order to achieve t he desired accu2
racy ( defined by circular2error2probability) , t he types of appropriate sensors are chosen. The inertial measurement
unit ( IMU ) is composed of t hose sensors. It is necessary to calibrate t he sensors to obtain t heir error model coeffi2
cients of IMU . After calibration tests , t he accuracy is calculated by uniform design met hod and it is proved t hat
t he accuracy of IMU is satisfied for t he desired goal.

Key words : error analysis ; strapdown inertial navigation system ; uniform design met hod ; calibration test
CLC number : V 249132 　　Document code : A 　　Article ID : 100420579 ( 2002) 0220117204

　　During a practical st rapdown inertial navigation where

systems ( SINS) implementation , it is hoped t hat t he
navigation information f rom inertial navigation should
be provided exactly. However , as a result of initial
alignment errors , inertial sensor errors and computa2
tional errors and so on [ 1 ] t hat are passed to SINS , t he
accuracy of SINS is limited. So , designers must in2
vestigate t he propagation of errors in a proposed sys2
tem. The main aims for t his article are t he following :
① Error analysis for choosing appropriate sen2
sors.
② Calibration test for inertial measurement unit
( IMU ) .
③ Investigation of t he accuracy of IMU .
1 　Error Model and Error Analysis
In SINS , inertial sensors are mounted directly
on t he vehicle and ort hogonally to each ot her (in gen2
eral ) . The various error sources propagate t hroughout
t he system giving rise to position errors which in2
crease wit h time. The propagation of errors repre2
sented in mat hematical form is shown as
・
X ( t) = F ( t) X ( t) + W ( t) ,
X ( t ) = [δ
λ 　δ
φ 　δh 　δV E 　δV N 　δV V 　<E 　
<N 　<V 　g b　g
x b　g
y z εb x 　
b　 εb y 　εb z 　
Ka x 　 Ka y 　 Ka z 　θxy 　θxz 　θyx 　θyz 　θz x
θz y 　 Kg x 　 Kg y 　 Kg z 　ξxy 　ξxz 　ξyx 　ξyz
ξz x 　ξz y 　gr　g
x r　g
y z εr x 　
r　 εr y 　εr z ] T ,
F ( t ) is a 39 ×39 mat rix , and t he detail formulation
is defined in Ref . [ 2 ] .
In t his article , inst rument errors are discussed in
detail. Those error values are selected f rom testing re2
sult s or by experience. It is assumed t hat t he naviga2
tion system is mounted in a vehicle which is at rest on
t he eart h. Oscillations at t he Schuler f requency will
be observed in t he presence of system errors ( only
given gyro drift εE = 011°
/ h) . From Fig. 1 , it can be
seen t hat t he bias of rate gyros gives rise to a position
error which increases cubically wit h time. That is
why so much effort has been made in perfecting t he
performance of gyroscopes[ 2 ] .
As for very short term navigation , i. e. when t he
navigation time is a small f raction of a Schuler period ,
t he effect on t he growt h of errors is relatively little.
(1) Position errors influenced by accelerometer bias and

Received 　2001210212
Sponsored by Ministerial Level Advanced Research Foundation
Biographies 　L IU Qin (1973 - ) ,doctoral student ; L IU Li (1964 - ) , professor , doctoral adviser ; Q I Zai2kang (1936 - ) , professor , doctoral ad2
viser.

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Journal of Beiji ng Instit ute of Technology , 2002 , Vol. 11 , No . 2

In sum , error model , error analysis and error

budget are used in mat hematic simulation. After
t hat , it is essential to choose t he types of sensors and
implement t he IMU . An IMU can be composed of
t hree accelerometers and two rate gyros wit h two de2
grees of f reedom. In some foreign count ries , t he
IMU package can be purchases f rom certain compa2
Fig. 1 　Error distance produced by gyro ’s drift in t he east
nies , such as Honeywell Inc [ 1 ] . And t he output s f rom
IMU can be directly used wit hout any compensation
gyro drift when t he vehicle is at rest on t he eart h is
as t hey already implemented compensation in t he
calculated by t he following equations (in short term) :
・ IMU . But for our IMU composed by ourselves , it is
δ v E = gE , δS E = gE t 2 / 2 ,
(2) necessary to do calibration test and compensation.
・
δ v N ≤gεE t , δS N ≤- gεE t 3 / 6 ,
where S represent s t he distance , gE represent s t he 3 　Cal ibration Test and Error Com2
・
accelerometer bias , εE represent s t he gyro drift , v pensation
represent s t he velocity rate , indexes E and N repre2
　　The error models of SIMU ( st rapdown IMU )
sent east and nort h respectively.
are shown as follows. The sensor error coefficient s
can be obtained f rom t he calibration test s[ 3 ] , we have
2 　Error Allocation
N g x = Df x + D x 1 a x + D x 2 a y + D x 3 a z + S g x ωx + Kg x 1 ωy + Kg x 2 ωz
The desired navigation circular2error2probability N g y = Df y + D y1 a x + D y 2 a y + D y3 a z + S g yωy + Kg y1 ωx + Kgy2 ωz
( CEP) is 20 m at 30 s. In order to achieve t his accu2
N g z = Df z + D z 1 a x + D z 2 a y + D z 3 a z + S g zωz + Kg z 1 ωx + Kg z 2 ωz
racy , error budget analysis is needed to choose t he ap2 2
,
N a x = Ka x 0 + Ka x 1 a y + Ka x 2 a z + Ka x 3 a x + S a x a x
propriate sensors. The sensor error budget based on
2
N a y = Ka y 0 + Ka y 1 a x + Ka y 2 a z + Ka y 3 a y + S a y a y
some type of t rajectory is described in Tab. 1.
2
N a z = Ka z 0 + Ka z 1 a x + Ka z 2 a y + Ka z 3 a z + S a z a z
Tab. 1 　Sensor error budget
(3)
t = 30 s
sources of where N g is t he gyro measured output ; N a t he ac2
error east position nort h position
error
error/ m error/ m
celerometer measured output ; Df t he zero 2mean ran2
tilt and dom bias ; Ka0 t he accelerometer random bias ; D i1 ,
5′ - 614 614
azimut h errors D i 2 , D i3 t he g2sensitive bias coefficient s ; S g i t he gy2
accelerometer
10 - 3 g 　414 413 ro scale factor error , s/ (° ) ; Kg i 1 , Kg i2 t he gyro
initial bias
gyro drift 01011°
/s 　814 814
cross2coupling coefficient s , s/ (°
) ; Ka i1 , Ka i 2 t he ac2
celerometer cross2coupling coefficient s , g - 1 ; Ka i 3 t he
E R = 01596 ×(σE + σN ) = nonlinear calibration coefficient , g - 2 ; S a i t he ac2
01596 ×( 11144 + 11140 ) = 13162 ( m) , celerometer scale factor error , g - 1 .
n
1/ 2 In calibration test , a table of two degrees of f ree2
where σE = σ2E0 + ∑σ2E
i =1
i
, σN = σ2N0 +
dom is used for testing t he IMU . By rotating t he unit
n
1/ 2 t hrough 17 positions and some angular rotations , data
∑σ2N , index i represent s t he i2t h element , in2
i =1
i
f rom 7 channels are collected. The error coefficient s
dex 0 represent s initial condition errors. are calculated as follows :
Because t here are some ot her errors , t he values 19120 - 101084
of major errors should be smaller t han t he values in Ka0 = 24124 , Df = 　101541 ,
Tab. 1 in order to achieve t he desired accuracy. 16120 - 151683

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L IU Qi n et al . / Error A nalysis and Com pensation of S t rapdow n Inertial N avigation S ystem

3 277100 6166 - 3193 down platform to obtain t he velocity , attit ude and po2
Ka = 0157 3 294110 2105 , sition. The effect s of error compensation on eart h
2144 - 8161 3 279170 fixed navigation f rame are shown in Fig. 2.
826120 0139 26153 After compensation , t he predictable error terms
Kg = 0147 827164 24145 , in sensors are removed. However , it is not possible to
- 24155 0131 827142 compensate all effect s. In Fig. 2 , t here are still some
- 0166 0121 0160 bias , because accelerometer and gyro random error
Dg = - 0158 - 0158 0164 . can’ t be compensated entirely and t here are some er2
- 0108 0190 - 0124 rors t hat are not compensated ( such as t hermal ef2
The data ωx , ωy , ωz and a x , a y , a z calculated fect s) .
by Eq. ( 3) are stored in a chip and are used in st rap2

(a) pitch angle (b) yaw angle

(c) roll angle (d) position calculated

Fig. 2 　The IMU outputs wit h and wit hout compensation

is too large for practical application when level factors

4 　Simulation are very large. Now , t he problem is solved by uni2
form design met hod [ 4 ,5 ] , here t he test point s are scat2
To t he system , t here must be lot s of factors t hat
tered uniformly in t he range of test . It is suitable for
affect system accuracy. Most of t hem are random
complex system test s wit h large range and many lev2
vectors. If t he system error is calculated for t hose er2
els of factors. Wit h uniform design met hod , t he
ror coefficient s in t heir maximum values , t he error
number of test s is reduced dramatically. And t he
will be overestimated.
problem is solved simply by using certain tables. In
At present , t he popular design met hods are or2
order to use t he uniform design tables , some condi2
t hogonal design met hod and priority met hod. But
tions must be satisfied. The maximum number of fac2
t hose met hods are often used in systems where t he er2
tors must be equal to [ s/ 2 ] + 1. Symbol [ x ] means
ror levels are low. For example , if one test has p fac2
t he maximum integer less t han or equal to x . In our
tors and each factor has q levels , t hen , we must do
2 uniform design , U 13 ( 1312 ) is chosen as t he calcula2
q test s for ort hogonal design met hod. This number
tion table. The numbers of test s , rows , and levels are

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Journal of Beiji ng Instit ute of Technology , 2002 , Vol. 11 , No . 2

13 ,12 ,13 , respectively. So , six major error sources at 13 levels are shown in Tab. 2.

Tab. 2 　Uniform design table

column

1 2 6 8 9 10 east positi nort h positi

row
fixed error angle velocity/ plane and azimut h accelerometer random gyro random drift/ gyro scale error/ m error/ m

of accelerometer/ (′
) ( m・s ) - 1
attitude/ (′
) error/ 10 - 4
g (10 - 4
(°
) ・h - 1
) factor/ 10 - 3

1 0 01042 21125 21975 31400 019 0198 4140

2 01042 5 01126 41675 01850 11700 016 0130 7196
3 01085 0 01210 11700 41250 0 013 6170 9180
4 01127 5 01294 41250 21150 31825 0 6130 13100
5 01170 0 01378 11275 0 21125 110 10120 12160
6 01212 5 01462 31852 31400 01425 017 12100 18170
7 01255 0 0 01850 11275 41250 014 - 0120 1140
8 01297 5 01084 31400 41675 21550 011 1160 7150
9 01340 0 01168 01425 21550 01850 111 5150 7110
10 01382 5 01252 21975 01425 41675 018 5120 10110
11 01425 0 01336 0 31825 21975 015 11150 12120
12 01467 5 01420 21550 11700 11275 012 11100 15170
13 01510 0 01504 51100 51100 51100 112 12190 21190

　　Simulation is performed by using parameters in

Tab. 2. 14 t rajectories are obtained including t he ideal
one. The scattered final values are shown in Fig. 3.
It s CEP is 612 m. That is to say , t he IMU composed
by us has t he desired accuracy.
Fig. 3 　Scattered final values
References :
[ 1 ] 　Lawrence A. Modern inertial technology , navigation ,
guidance , and control [ M ] . New York : Springer2Verlag
Inc. , 1998.
[ 2 ] 　Titterton D H , Weston J L . Strapdown inertial naviga2
tion technology[ M ] . Lavenham : Peter Peregrinus Ltd. ,
1997.
[ 3 ] 　Myron K , Walter F. Avionics navigation system. 2nd ed
[ M ] . New York : John Wiley & Sons Inc. , 1997. 313
- 390.
[ 4 ] 　Fang Kaitai. Uniform design met hod ( Ⅰ) [J ] . Tactical
Missile Technology , 1994 ,3 ( 1) :54 - 65.
[ 5 ] 　Fang Kaitai. Uniform design met hod ( Ⅱ) [J ] . Tactical
Missile Technology , 1994 ,6 ( 2) :56 - 69.

捷联惯导误差分析与误差补偿
刘 　勤 , 　刘 　莉 , 　祁载康
( 北京理工大学 机电工程学院 , 北京 　100081)

摘 　要 : 通过误差分析 ,讨论了各种误差源对捷联惯导系统的影响 . 根据惯导系统精度要求 ,确定了惯性测量元件

最大允许误差 ,从而为选择合理的传感器确定了理论依据 . 这些传感器组成的惯性测量元件需要经过标定实验来
确定系统误差补偿模型中的系数 . 误差补偿后 ,通过均匀设计法得到系统精度 ,满足了精度要求 .

关键词 : 误差分析 ; 捷联惯导 ; 均匀设计方法 ; 标定实验

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