Performance of automotive-grade MEMS sensors in low cost AHRS for general aviation

The Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS) provides data for primary flight instruments, head-up displays, autopilots, and moving map navigation systems. Advances in solid-state MEMS rate sensors, coupled with Kalman Filter algorithms designed to mitigate high drift rates, provide the basis for low cost, high performance AHRS for General Aviation. This paper describes the performance of a low cost, miniaturized AHRS using automotive-grade MEMS sensors. The performance of the system is detailed. The implications for certification of this class of system and fault tolerance are discussed.