GPS based attitude determination using embedded magnetometer calibration

Abstract

This paper presents a method for GPS based orientation determination. The carrier phase GPS concept is used to achieve precise results. The typical problem of the integer ambiguity resolution is solved using additional magnetometer and accelerometer. For proper operation the magnetometer should be calibrated together with the moving vehicle. Two kinds of calibration methods are presented. The first can be used with aerial vehicles, the second with ground vehicles. The calibration methods are able to run online on embedded computers on the board of the vehicle. The calibration methods and the orientation determination are tested with real movements performed with a car and a sail-plane.

High precision GPS positioning with multiple receivers using carrier phase technique and sensor fusion

“…It is assumed that the magnetometer is calibrated and the result is corrected with the inclination and declination angle of the local magnetic field. One possible solution is described in [13].…”

“…The magnetic sensor is a Freescale MAG3110 module. The inertial and magnetic sensors are calibrated using the methods of [12] and [13]. The data procession of the onboard system is running on an Atmel AT91SAM9XE 200MHz fixed point processor using a soft real-time Linux operating system.…”