Avionics

10AE82
Unit II

Prepared by: Akhil A Chandran

Dept. of Aeronautical Engineering
MVJCE
 Unit II
Inertial Navigation System

I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial platform.

II. Structure of stable platform.
III. Inertial Navigation units.
IV. Inertial alignment.
V. Inertial Interface system.
VI. Importance of Compass swing

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 Inertial Navigation System
• Inertial navigation is a self-contained navigation technique in which
measurements provided by accelerometers and gyroscopes are
used to track the position and orientation of an object relative to a
known starting point, orientation and velocity.
• Inertial measurement units (IMUs) typically contain three
orthogonal rate-gyroscopes and three orthogonal accelerometers,
measuring angular velocity and linear acceleration respectively.
• Inertial navigation is used in a wide range of applications including
the navigation of aircraft, tactical and strategic missiles, spacecraft,
submarines and ships.
• Recent advances in the construction of MEMS devices have made it
possible to manufacture small and light inertial navigation systems.
These advances have widened the range of possible applications to
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include areas such as human and animal motion capture.
 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform
A. Gyroscope
Mechanical
• A conventional gyroscope consists of a spinning wheel mounted on two
gimbals which allow it to rotate in all three axes.
• An effect of the conservation of angular momentum is that the spinning
wheel will resist changes in orientation. Hence when a mechanical
gyroscope is subjected to a rotation the wheel will remain at a constant
global orientation and the angles between adjacent gimbals will change.
• To measure the orientation of the device the angles between adjacent
gimbals can be read using angle pick-offs.
• Note that a conventional gyroscope measures orientation. In contrast
nearly all modern gyroscopes are rate-gyros, which measure angular
velocity.
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 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform – Contd..
• The main disadvantage of mechanical
gyroscopes is that they contain moving
parts. Moving parts cause friction, which
in turn causes the output to drift over
time.
• To minimise friction high-precision
bearings and special lubricants are used,
adding to the cost of the device.
Mechanical gyroscopes also require a Typical Mechanical Gyroscope
few minutes to warm up, which is not
ideal in many situations.
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 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform – Contd..
Optical Gyro
• A fibre optic gyroscope (FOG) uses the interference of light to measure
angular velocity.
• A FOG consists of a large coil of optical fibre. To measure rotation two light
beams are fired into the coil in opposite directions. If the sensor is
undergoing a rotation then the beam travelling in the direction of rotation
will experience a longer path to the other end of the fibre than the beam
travelling against the rotation, the Sagnac effect.
• When the beams exit the fibre they are combined. The phase shift introduced
due to the Sagnac effect causes the beams to interfere, resulting in a
combined beam whose intensity depends on the angular velocity.
• It is therefore possible to measure the angular velocity by measuring the
intensity of the combined beam.

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 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform – Contd..

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 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform – Contd..
• Ring laser gyroscopes (RLGs) are also based on the Sagnac
effect.
• The difference between a FOG and RLG is that in a RLG laser
beams are directed around a closed path using mirrors rather
than optical fibre.
• Unlike mechanical gyroscopes, optical gyros contain no
moving parts and require only a few seconds to start-up. The
accuracy of an optical gyro is largely dependent on the length
of the light transmission path (larger is better), which is
constrained by the size of the device.

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 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform – Contd..
B. Accelerometers
Mechanical
• A mechanical accelerometer consists of a
mass suspended by springs.
• The displacement of the mass is measured
using a displacement pick-off, giving a signal
that is proportional to the force F acting on
the mass in the direction of the input axis.
• Newton’s second law F = ma is then used to
calculate the acceleration acting on the
device.
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 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform – Contd..
Solid State
• Solid-state accelerometers can be broken into various sub-groups,
including surface acoustic wave, vibratory, silicon and quartz devices.
• Solid state accelerometers are small, reliable and rugged. An example of a
solid-state accelerometer is the surface acoustic wave (SAW)
accelerometer.
• A SAW accelerometer consists of a cantilever beam which is resonated at a
particular frequency. A mass is attached to one end of the beam which is
free to move. The other end is rigidly attached to the case. When an
acceleration is applied along the input axis the beam bends. This causes
the frequency of the surface acoustic wave to change proportionally to
the applied strain. By measuring this change in frequency the acceleration
can be determined.

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 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform – Contd..
MEMS Accelerometers
• Micro-machined silicon accelerometers use the same principles as
mechanical and solid state sensors. There are two main classes of MEMS
accelerometer.
• The first class consists of mechanical accelerometers (i.e: devices which
measure the displacement of a supported mass) manufactured using
MEMS techniques.
• The second class consists of devices which measure the change in
frequency of a vibrating element caused by a change of tension, as in SAW
accelerometer

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 I. Gyroscopic versus Inertial Platform – Contd..

SAW Resonator

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 II. Structure of Stable Platform
• In stable platform type systems the inertial sensors are mounted on a platform
which is isolated from any external rotational motion.
• In other words the platform is held in alignment with the global frame. This is
achieved by mounting the platform using gimbals (frames) which allow the
platform freedom in all three axes.
• The platform mounted gyroscopes detect any platform rotations. These signals are
fed back to torque motors which rotate the gimbals in order to cancel out such
rotations, hence keeping the platform aligned with the global frame.
• To track the orientation of the device the angles between adjacent gimbals can be
read using angle pick-offs.
• To calculate the position of the device the signals from the platform mounted
accelerometers are double integrated.
• Note that it is necessary to subtract acceleration due to gravity from the vertical
channel before performing the integration.

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 II. Structure of Stable Platform – Contd..

A Stable Platform IMU

Stable platform inertial navigation algorithm.

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 Strapdown Systems
• In strapdown systems the inertial sensors are mounted rigidly onto the
device, and therefore output quantities measured in the body frame rather
than the global frame. To keep track of orientation the signals from the rate
gyroscopes are ‘integrated’.
• To track position the three accelerometer signals are resolved into global
coordinates using the known orientation, as determined by the integration of
the gyro signals.
• The global acceleration signals are then integrated as in the stable platform
algorithm.
• Stable platform and strapdown systems are both based on the same
underlying principles. S
• Strapdown systems have reduced mechanical complexity and tend to be
physically smaller than stable platform systems. These benefits are achieved
at the cost of increased computational complexity. As the cost of computation
has decreased strapdown systems have become the dominant type of INS
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 Strapdown Systems – Contd..

Strapdown inertial navigation algorithm

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 IV. Inertial Alignment
• Alignment is the process whereby the orientation of the axes of an inertial
navigation system is determined with respect to the reference axis system.
• The basic concept of aligning an inertial navigation system is quite simple and
straight forward.
• However, there are many complications that make alignment both time
consuming and complex.
• Accurate alignment is crucial if precision navigation is to be achieved over long
periods of time without any form of aiding.
• In addition to the determination of initial attitude, it is necessary to initialise
the velocity and position defined by the navigation system as part of the
alignment process.
• It is the angular alignment which frequently poses the major difficulty.

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 IV. Inertial Alignment – Contd..
• There are two fundamental types of alignment process: self-alignment, using
gyrocompassing techniques, and the alignment of a slave system with
respect to a master reference.
• There are various systematic and random errors that limit the accuracy to
which an inertial navigation system can be aligned, whichever method is
used.
• These include the effects of inertial sensor errors, data latency caused by
transmission delays, signal quantisation, vibration effects and other
undesirable or unquantifiable motion.
• Various techniques have been developed to overcome the effects of the
random and systematic errors and enable slave systems in missiles, for
example, to be aligned whilst under the wing of an aircraft in-flight, or in the
magazine of a ship underway on the ocean.

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 IV. Inertial Alignment – Contd..
• The Inertial Alignment can be done either on a fixed platform
of on the moving platform.
• whilst the are particular problems encountered when aligning
on the ground, in the air and at sea .

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 IV. Inertial Alignment – Contd..
i) Alignment on a Fixed Platform

• Consider the situation where it is required to align an inertial navigation system to the
local geographic co-ordinate frame defined by the directions of true north and the local
vertical.
• For the purposes of this analysis, it is assumed that the navigation system is stationary
with respect to the Earth.
• In this situation, the accelerometers measure three orthogonal components of the
specific force needed to overcome gravity whilst the gyroscopes measure the
components of the Earth's turn rate in the same directions.
• The alignment of a stabilised platform system in which the instrument cluster can be
rotated physically into alignment with the local geographic reference frame.
• In this situation, it is usual to refer to the accelerometers whose sensitive axes are to be
aligned with the north, east and vertical axes of the reference frame as the north, east
and vertical accelerometers respectively.
• Similarly, north, east and vertical gyroscopes may be defined.
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 IV. Inertial Alignment – Contd..
• In a platform mechanisation, alignment is achieved by adjusting the
orientation of the platform until the measured components of specific force
and Earth's rate become equal to the expected values.
• The horizontal components of gravity acting in the north and east directions
are nominally zero.
• The instrument cluster is therefore rotated until the outputs of the north and
east accelerometers reach a null, thus levelling the platform.
• Since the east component of Earth's rate is also known to be zero, the
platform is then rotated about the vertical until the east gyroscope output is
nulled, thus achieving an alignment in azimuth.
• This type of process is referred to as gyrocompassing
• An equivalent alignment process, sometimes referred to as analytic
gyrocompassing, can be used to align a strapdown inertial navigation system
as described next.

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 IV. Inertial Alignment – Contd..
• In a strapdown system, attitude information may be stored either as a
direction cosine matrix.
• The objective of the angular alignment process is to determine the
direction cosine matrix which define the relationship between the
inertial sensor axes and the local geographic frame.
• The measurements provided by the inertial sensors in body axes may be
resolved into the local geographic frame using the current best estimate of
the body attitude with respect to this frame.
• The resolved sensor measurements are then compared with the expected
turn rates and accelerations to enable the direction cosines or quaternion
parameters to be calculated correctly.

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 IV. Inertial Alignment – Contd..
ii) Alignment on a Moving Platform
• When aligning in a moving vehicle, the accelerations and turn rates to
which the system is subjected are no longer well defined in the way that
they are when the system is stationary.
• It therefore becomes necessary to provide some independent measure of
these quantities against which the measurements generated by the
aligning system may be compared.
• As an alternative, alignment may be achieved by comparing estimates of
velocity or position generated by the strapdown system with similar
estimates provided by an external source over a period of time.
• Velocity and position errors will propagate with time as a result of the
angular alignment errors. Therefore, any difference in the velocity and
position estimates generated between the aligning system and the external
source over this time will be partially the result of an alignment error.

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 IV. Inertial Alignment – Contd..
• With aircraft and shipboard systems, the independent measurement
information may be provided by a separate inertial navigation system on-board
the same vehicle.
• By comparing the two sets of inertial measurements it is possible to deduce the
relative orientation of the two frames on a 'continuous' basis. The precise
measurements available will be dependent on the reference system
mechanisation on-board the ship or aircraft.
• As a rule, a stable platform navigation system will only output estimates of
position, velocity, attitude and heading.
• A strapdown reference system offers greater flexibility, potentially providing
linear acceleration and angular rate information in addition to the usual
navigation outputs listed above.
• Alternatively, position fixes may be derived on-board the vehicle from signals
transmitted by a radio beacon or from satellites.

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 V. Inertial Interface system
• Typical Triple INS System

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 V. Inertial Interface system
 Air Data and Inertial Reference Systems (ADIRS)
• The new integrated ADIRS developed in the early 1980s combined the
computation for air data and inertial parameters in one multichannel unit.
• Taking the B777 as an example, the primary unit is an Air Data and Inertial
Reference Unit (ADIRU) which provides the main source of air data and
inertial information.
• This unit is supported by an Attitude and Heading Reference System
(AHRS) which on the B777 is called the Secondary Attitude Air data
Reference Unit (SAARU).
• This provides secondary attitude and air data information should the
primary source, the ADIRU, become totally unusable.

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 V. Inertial Interface system
• B777 ADIRU
• There are six Ring Laser Gyros (RLGs) and
six accelerometers included in the unit. It
can be seen that both sets of sensors are
arranged in a hexad-skew redundant set
in relation to an orthogonal axis set.
• This means that, by resolving the output
of each of the six sensors in the direction
of the axis set, each sensor is able to
measure an element of the relevant
inertia parameter, Body rate or
acceleration, in each axis.
• This provides a redundant multichannel
sensor set with the prospect of achieving
higher levels of accuracy by scaling and
combining sensor outputs.

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 V. Inertial Interface system
• B777 air data and inertial reference
system

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