Integrated measurement system using accelerometers and gyros as peripheral sensors to estimate the motional state of an elastic beam

Integrated navigation devices for vehicle guidance are the most common example of an integrated motion measurement system combining the signals from an inertial measurement unit (IMU consisting of three accelerometers and three gyros) and a GPS receiver with a single antenna. For this, the vehicle is traditionally assumed to be a single rigid body with six motional degrees of freedom to be determined. During periods of low vehicle dynamics the common integrated navigation systems show, however, stability problems. Nevertheless, the stability of the system can be guaranteed by distributing sensors over the vehicle structure. In this case the rigid body assumption has to be expanded to take the distributed sensors and the flexibility of the structure into account. Integrated systems in general are fusing different measuring signals by combining their benefits and blinding out their disadvantages. For instance, gyros and accelerometers are used to obtain reliable signals with a good time resolution. On the other hand, aiding sensors like radar units and strain gauges are known to be long-term accurate. Furthermore, the kernel of such integrated systems consists of an extended Kalman filter that estimates the motion state of the structure. Besides the sensor signals, the basis for the filter is an additional kinematical model of the structure which has to be developed individually. The example of the motion of an elastic beam being considered here is meant to be an approach to obtain motional measurements of a wing of a large airplane during flight. By means of a modal approach, a kinematical model of the beam was developed. This paper will compare integrated systems utilising accelerometers as peripheral sensors with systems using gyros and systems with a combination of both peripheral sensor types. Based on simulation the paper shows this approach, different sensor configurations, and estimated motion results of an elastic beam. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)