Vector-Aided In-Field Calibration Method for Low-End MEMS Gyros in Attitude and Heading Reference Systems

This paper presents a novel calibration method for the microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gyros. Comparing with the traditional gyro calibration method that requires high precision equipment, the calibration scheme presented in this paper is based on the principle that the time derivative of a reference vector can be expressed as the cross product of the angular velocity and the reference vector itself. The proposed method can use vector observations instead of precise external references, and it is well suited for the in-field calibration of attitude and heading reference systems (AHRS). Moreover, the proposed method computes all the parameters in the sensor error model through linear optimization. Numerical simulations are performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, and experiment on a custom-built AHRS shows that the proposed calibration method has the same accuracy as the traditional method, which uses a rate table for a low-end MEMS gyro.