This research proposes a novel, autonomous, regression-based methodology for Allan variance analysis of inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors. Current methods for Allan variance analysis have been rooted in the human-based interpretation of linear trends, referred to as the slope method. The slope method is so prolific; it is referenced among electrical and electronics engineering standards for IMU error analysis. However, the graphical nature and visual-inspection-based use of the method limit its ability to be programmed as a generalized algorithm, which hinders the autonomy desired in modern-day navigation computations. Using nonlinear regression with a ridge-regression initial guess, the proposed method is shown to produce comparable results to the gold standard slope method when using standard-length data collections and outperforms the slope method when the amount of available data is limited. This development directly enables accurate navigation solutions for all vehicles in land, air, sea, and space operations.
The task of inertial sensor calibration has required the development of various techniques to take into account the sources of measurement error coming from such devices. The calibration of the stochastic errors of these sensors has been the focus of increasing amount of research in which the method of reference has been the so-called "Allan variance slope method" which, in addition to not having appropriate statistical properties, requires a subjective input which makes it prone to mistakes. To overcome this, recent research has started proposing "automatic" approaches where the parameters of the probabilistic models underlying the error signals are estimated by matching functions of the Allan variance or Wavelet Variance with their modelimplied counterparts. However, given the increased use of such techniques, there has been no study or clear direction for practitioners on which approach is optimal for the purpose of sensor calibration. This paper formally defines the class of estimators based on this technique and puts forward theoretical and applied results that, comparing with estimators in this class, suggest the use of the Generalized Method of Wavelet Moments as an optimal choice.
All‐source navigation has become increasingly relevant over the past decade with the development of viable alternative sensor technologies. However, as the number and type of sensors informing a system increases, so does the probability of corrupting the system with sensor modeling errors, signal interference, and undetected faults. Though the latter of these has been extensively researched, the majority of existing approaches have constrained faults to biases and designed algorithms centered around the assumption of simultaneously redundant, synchronous sensors with valid measurement models, none of which are guaranteed for all‐source systems. As part of an overall all‐source assured or resilient navigation objective, this research contributes a fault‐ and sensor‐agnostic fault detection and exclusion method that can provide the user with performance guarantees without constraining the statistical distribution of the fault. The proposed method is compared against normalized solution separation approaches using Monte‐Carlo simulations in a 2D non‐GPS navigation problem.
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