A Comprehensive Error Modeling and On-Field Calibration Method for HRG SINS by Tumbling the Hexahedron

Highlights: What are the main findings? A comprehensive on-field calibration method for HRG SINS is developed, incorporating hexahedral structural errors. The proposed 24-position accelerometer calibration and 48-rotation gyro calibration schemes enable simultaneous identification of sensor biases, scale factor errors, installation misalignments, and fixture-induced errors. What are the implications of the main findings? The method significantly improves calibration accuracy of both accelerometers and HRGs compared to traditional approaches. It relaxes the mechanical precision requirements of the hexahedral fixture, reducing the cost and complexity of on-field calibration. On-field calibration for SINS often uses right hexahedron, but the influence of the structure errors, such as mutual position tolerances towards parallelism or the perpendicularity of two arbitrary planes of the hexahedron, on the calibration accuracy is often neglected. In this paper, a hexahedron structure error model and a comprehensive corresponding SINS calibration error model are developed based on hemispherical resonator gyroscope (HRGs). The proposed method introduces the comprehensive hexahedron errors through defining the normal vectors of the exterior surfaces of the hexahedron. A 24-position calibration scheme is designed to identify accelerometer-related errors, while a 48-rotation scheme is developed to identify gyro-related errors. The complete calibration procedure enables simultaneous identification of hexahedron structure errors, installation misalignments, scale factor errors, and biases. Experimental validation is conducted using a high-precision three-axis turntable, which simulates the hexahedron structure errors. The results show that the proposed method significantly improves the calibration accuracy of both accelerometers and HRGs compared with traditional methods. Furthermore, it reduces the accuracy requirements for the hexahedron structure, thus lowering the cost of SINS on-field calibration.