Versatile Land Navigation Using Inertial Sensors and Odometry: Self-calibration, In-motion Alignment and Positioning

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive land navigation approach combining IMU and odometry, featuring self-calibration, in-motion alignment, and robust performance in GPS-denied environments, validated through extensive real-world testing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel self-calibration and refinement method for IMU/odometer integration and an odometer-aided in-motion alignment algorithm for continuous navigation.

Findings

Effective self-calibration over load and temperature variations

Successful in-motion alignment during vehicle movement

Validated long-distance navigation performance

Abstract

Inertial measurement unit (IMU) and odometer have been commonly-used sensors for autonomous land navigation in the global positioning system (GPS)-denied scenarios. This paper systematically proposes a versatile strategy for self-contained land vehicle navigation using the IMU and an odometer. Specifically, the paper proposes a self-calibration and refinement method for IMU/odometer integration that is able to overcome significant variation of the misalignment parameters, which are induced by many inevitable and adverse factors such as load changing, refueling and ambient temperature. An odometer-aided IMU in-motion alignment algorithm is also devised that enables the first-responsive functionality even when the vehicle is running freely. The versatile strategy is successfully demonstrated and verified via long-distance real tests.