A Reduced Calibration Method for Inertial Measurement Units at Different Temperatures

In order to make calibration of inertial measurement units(IMU) at different environmental temperatures more easily,this paper proposes a reduced calibration method based on the fact that the norm of outputs is equal to the magnitude of inputs for an IMU.We also derived the best calibration scheme for IMUs whose gyroscope triad and accelerometer triad are both almost orthogonal.Calibration tests at different environmental temperatures for a laser gyroscope strapdown inertial navigation system were performed.Compared with the calibration results using a high precision turntable,parameters got from the reduced calibration method are precise enough to be used in a navigation grade inertial navigation system.The tests show that the proposed method is effective.