Preliminary experimental evaluation of in-situ calibration methods for MEMS-based attitude sensors and Doppler sonars in underwater vehicle navigation

Abstract

We report preliminary results of an in-water test-tank experimental evaluation of recently reported methods for the problem of in-situ calibration of the alignment rotation matrix between Doppler sonar velocity sensors and attitude sensors arising in the navigation of underwater vehicles. Unlike previous reports employing high-cost high-accuracy attitude sensors, including true-North-seeking gyrocompasses and high-precision accelerometers, we address the case of using attitude sensing with a low-cost Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) attitude and heading reference system. We report a comparative experimental evaluation of several recently reported calibration methods when employing low-cost MEMS attitude sensors. The methods are experimentally evaluated using data obtained with the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) remotely operated underwater vehicle in the JHU Hydrodynamic Test Facility. We report the preliminary results of comparative analysis of the performance of recently reported calibration methods and a most previously technique indicating satisfactory performance of the proposed methods for the problem of in-situ calibration of the alignment rotation matrix between Doppler sonar velocity sensors and low-cost MEMS-based attitude sensors.