An Ultra-Low Noise MEMS IMU Array Based on Analytical Interference Mitigation for Highly Accurate Inertial Navigation

Abstract

This paper describes a high-accuracy Micro Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) array based on the evaluation of interference noise characteristics and inertial navigation performance of MEMS IMU array. The principle of the IMU array is that error variance after averaging decreases to 1/√N, where N is the number of IMUs, if the IMU noises are uncorrelated to each other. However, interference noise due to crosstalk among densely mounted MEMS gyroscopes poses a significant challenge. We evaluate the characteristics of a MEMS IMU array composed of 32 IMUs (LSM6DSR by STMicroelectronics), model and parameterize the noises, and assess the impact on inertial navigation through both simulations and experiments with real devices. The results demonstrate that a MEMS IMU array without low-frequency interference noise achieves the expected performance improvement, validating the effectiveness of simple averaging for high-density MEMS IMU array.

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