A Triaxial Accelerometer Calibration Method Using a Mathematical Model

This paper presents a new triaxial accelerometer calibration method using a mathematical model of six calibration parameters: three gain factors and three biases. The fundamental principle of the proposed calibration method is that the sum of the triaxial accelerometer outputs is equal to the gravity vector when the accelerometer is stationary. The proposed method requires the triaxial accelerometer to be placed in six different tilt angles to estimate the six calibration parameters. Since the mathematical model of the calibration parameters is nonlinear, an iterative method is used. The results are verified via simulations by comparing the estimated gain factors and biases with the true gain factors and biases. The simulation results confirm that the proposed method is applicable in extreme cases where the gain factor is 1000 V/(m/s2) and the bias is ±100 V, as well as the cases where the gain factor is 0.001 V/(m/s2) and the bias is 0 V. The proposed calibration method is also experimentally tested with two different triaxial accelerometers, and the results are validated using a mechanical inclinometer. The experimental results show that the proposed method can accurately estimate gain factors and biases even when the initial guesses are not close to the true values. In addition, the proposed method has a low computational cost because the calculation is simple, and the iterative method usually converges within three iteration steps. The error sources of the experiments are discussed in this paper.

[1]  Marco Parvis,et al.  Procedure for effortless in-field calibration of three-axial rate gyro and accelerometers , 1995 .

[2]  A. Pinz,et al.  Calibration of Hybrid Vision / Inertial Tracking Systems * , 2005 .

[3]  Ying Kun Peng,et al.  A vector-based gyro-free inertial navigation system by integrating existing accelerometer network in a passenger vehicle , 2004, PLANS 2004. Position Location and Navigation Symposium (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37556).

[4]  Chi Chiu Tsang,et al.  A Calibration Method for MEMS Inertial Sensors Based on Optical Tracking , 2007, 2007 2nd IEEE International Conference on Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems.

[5]  Hefin Rowlands,et al.  Expert systems and quality tools for quality improvement , 1999, 1999 7th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation. Proceedings ETFA '99 (Cat. No.99TH8467).

[6]  Eun-Hwan Shin,et al.  A New Calibration Method for Strapdown Inertial Navigation Systems , 2022 .

[7]  Mark Koifman,et al.  Inertial navigation system aided by aircraft dynamics , 1999, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..

[8]  D. Giansanti,et al.  Guidlines for Calibration and Drift Compensation of a Wearable Device with Rate-Gyroscopes and Accelerometers , 2007, 2007 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[9]  B. Kemp,et al.  Body position can be monitored in 3D using miniature accelerometers and earth-magnetic field sensors. , 1998, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[10]  Ahmed El-Rabbany,et al.  Temperature variation effects on stochastic characteristics for low-cost MEMS-based inertial sensor error , 2007 .

[11]  Eric Foxlin,et al.  Motion Tracking Requirements and Technologies , 2002 .

[12]  Wouter Olthuis,et al.  Procedure for in-use calibration of triaxial accelerometers , 1997 .

[13]  Akira Umeda,et al.  Calibration of three-axis accelerometers using a three-dimensional vibration generator and three laser interferometers , 2004 .

[14]  M.F. Golnaraghi,et al.  Initial calibration of an inertial measurement unit using an optical position tracking system , 2004, PLANS 2004. Position Location and Navigation Symposium (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37556).

[15]  P. Veltink,et al.  Estimating orientation with gyroscopes and accelerometers. , 1999, Technology and health care : official journal of the European Society for Engineering and Medicine.

[16]  Jason P. Hayes,et al.  Semi-automatic calibration technique using six inertial frames of reference , 2004, SPIE Micro + Nano Materials, Devices, and Applications.

[17]  D.S. Bernstein,et al.  Calibrating a triaxial accelerometer-magnetometer - using robotic actuation for sensor reorientation during data collection , 2005, IEEE Control Systems.

[18]  P.H. Veltink,et al.  Inclination measurement of human movement using a 3-D accelerometer with autocalibration , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.

[19]  Naser El-Sheimy,et al.  A new multi-position calibration method for MEMS inertial navigation systems , 2007 .

[20]  Z. C. Wu,et al.  Gravity based online calibration for monolithic triaxial accelerometers' gain and offset drift , 2002, Proceedings of the 4th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation (Cat. No.02EX527).

[21]  Christian T.M. Baten,et al.  Estimation of orientation with gyroscopes and accelerometers , 1999, Proceedings of the First Joint BMES/EMBS Conference. 1999 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology 21st Annual Conference and the 1999 Annual Fall Meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society (Cat. N.

[22]  P.H. LaFond.  Modeling for error reduction in vibrating beam accelerometers , 1992, IEEE PLANS 92 Position Location and Navigation Symposium Record.

[23]  Vijay Parthasarathy,et al.  Fast and accurate calibration of an X-ray imager to an electromagnetic tracking system for interventional cardiac procedures , 2010, 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology.