Flight motion tracking with new configuration of hybrid inertial sensors

Purpose: This paper aims to describe a novel hybrid inertial measurement unit (IMU) for motion capturing via a new configuration of strategically distributed inertial sensors, and a calibration approach for the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors mounted in a flight vehicle motion tracker built on the inertial navigation system. Design/methodology/approach: The hybrid-IMU is designed with five accelerometers and one auxiliary gyroscope instead of the accelerometer and gyroscope triads in the conventional IMU. Findings: Simulation studies for tracking with both attitude angles and translational movement of a flight vehicle are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Originality/value: The cross-quadratic terms of angular velocity are selected to process the direct measurements of angular velocities of body frame and to avoid the integration of angular acceleration vector compared with gyro-free configuration based on only accelerometers. The inertial sensors are selected from the commercial microelectromechanical system devices to realize its low-cost applications.