Published Paper Details:

Inertial navigation uses gyroscopes and accelerometers to maintain an estimate of the position, velocity, attitude and attitude rates of the aircraft. Gyroscopes are used in various applications to sense either the angle turned through by a vehicle or structure (displacement gyroscopes) or its angular rate of turn about some defined axis (rate gyroscopes). Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) devices are one of the most exciting developments in inertial sensors Micro inertial sensors, such as MEMS gyroscopes, can provide small, inexpensive, low power devices; however, the accuracy of these devices is insufficient for many space applications. The aim of this project is to develop a mathematical model of the vibratory MEMS gyroscope and to derive the governing equations of motion of these systems using the Newton-Euler approach. The individual outputs of many nominally identical micro sensors can be combined to generate an arithmetic average of the sensor measurements and then processed this average in an appropriate Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The estimates are generally much more accurate than the measurements taken directly from the sensors.