Pose-and-twist estimation of a rigid body using accelerometers

An algorithm for estimating the pose and twist of a rigid body using measurements made by a redundant number of on-board accelerometers is formulated. Redundancy helps reduce the effect of the accelerometer noise. This algorithm is based only on rigid-body kinematics because it is intended to be used for rigid bodies acted upon by forces and moments elusive to modeling. Procedures are developed to calculate the angular velocity and acceleration as well as the attitude of the body along with the velocity and position of the centroid of the pickup points, all in the body frame. It is shown that a small installation error can cause the integration results to become unstable. This instability is compensated for by means of a pose-measurement sensor.