Self-calibration of INS/Odometer integrated system via Kalman filter

The alignment of inertial navigation system (INS) body axis with vehicle body frame (VBF), and calibration of odometer´s scale factor are vital necessities for INS/Odometer integrated system. The application of nonholonomic constraints and odometer outputs require the INS body frame be well-aligned with VBF, any misaligned attitude angles will cause serious degradation in position drift errors and other attitude estimation. Therefore, aim for a better navigation result, calibration of INS-to-vehicle misalignment angles and odometer´s scale factor should be implemented before every use. The purpose of this paper is to design an ease scenario for the estimation of these parameters. We first derive the dynamic model and measurement equations, and then use Kalman filter to estimate the concerned states. In order to keep the self-contained characteristic, only the INS and odometer outputs are employed throughout the calibration. The validity of the proposed method is tested through ground based navigation experiments.