Study of micro attitude determination system based on MEMS sensors

An attitude determination system composed of MEMS gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometer is designed. The system can solve the problem of error accumulation in the strap-down attitude determination system. The stochastic errors of gyroscope are analyzed through Allan variance. Quaternion error differential equation and magnetometer linearized measurement equation are established, a Kalman filter is designed for attitude estimation. The attitude is calculated with practical sensors' output. The experimental results indicate that this combination could effectively restrain attitude error arising from the random drift of sensor. The system has the characteristics of small size, low cost, and good reliability.