Error analysis of analytical coarse alignment formulations for stationary SINS

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive error analysis of coarse alignment formulations for stationary strapdown inertial navigation systems (SINS). Analytical expressions for the residual normality, orthogonality, alignment, and Euler angle errors are systematically derived, allowing us to establish comparisons in terms of rapidity, accuracy, and autonomy requirements. For the purpose of the error analysis, geographic latitude and local gravity acceleration uncertainties are considered, in addition to the inertial sensor uncertainties. As the main contribution of this paper, an improved coarse alignment method is proposed, which is based on orthonormality constraints existing between the Euler angles and the attitude matrix. In contrast to the traditional methods, the proposed formulation does not imply normality and orthogonality errors, besides producing time-independent alignment and Euler angle errors. The latter is seen to be particularly interesting for situations wherein, due to time constraints, posterior fine alignment and orthonormalization procedures cannot be implemented. The superiority of the proposed formulation is validated through simulated and experimental tests, regardless of the SINS initial orientation. The accuracy degradation produced by each alignment formulation in the navigation stage is used as the performance index.