Calibrating a triaxial accelerometer-magnetometer - using robotic actuation for sensor reorientation during data collection

A kinematic model and kinematic maneuver to calibrate a triaxial accelerometer and magnetometer was derived. The calibration was accomplished by implementing the maneuver on a six-degrees-of-freedom robotic arm. Analysis of the accuracy of the experimental results was performed by generating simulated data and formulating two least-squares optimization problems. By first calibrating the accelerometers with simulated data, the possibility of inconsistency in the estimator was evaluated. By calibrating the accelerator and the magnetometer separately, discrepancies in the data and model were checked. The simultaneous calibrations produced smaller errors for both the magnetometer and accelerometer compared to the separate calibrations.