Quaternion Algorithm for Initial Alignment of Strapdown INS Using the A. N. Tikhonov Regularization Method

For the functioning of algorithms of inertial orientation and navigation of strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS), it is necessary to conduct a mathematical initial alignment of SINS immediately before the operation of these algorithms. An efficient method of initial alignment (not calibration!) of SINS is the method of vector matching. Its essence is to determine the relative orientation of the instrument trihedron Y (related to the unit of SINS sensors) and the reference trihedron X according to the results of measuring the projections of at least two non-collinear vectors of the axes on both trihedrons. We address the estimation of the initial orientation of the object using the method of gyrocompassing, which is a form of vector matching method. This initial alignment method is based upon using the projections of the apparent acceleration vector a and the absolute angular velocity vector ω of the object in the coordinate systems X and Y. It is assumed that the three single-axis accelerometers and the three gyroscopes (generally speaking, the three absolute angular velocity sensors of any type), which measure the projections of the vectors a and ω, are installed along the axes of the instrument coordinate system Y. If the projections of the same vectors on the axes of the base coordinate system X are known, then it is possible to estimate the mutual orientation of X and Y trihedrons. We are solving the problem of the initial alignment of SINS for the case of a fixed base, when the accelerometers measure the projection gi (i = 1, 2, 3) of the gravity acceleration vector g, and the gyroscopes measure the projections u i of the vector u of angular velocity of Earth’s rotation on the body-fixed axes. The projections of the same vectors on the axes of the normal geographic coordinate system X are also estimated using the known formulas. The correlation between the projections of the vectors u and g in X and Y coordinate system is given by known quaternion relations. In these relations the unknown variable is the orientation quaternion of the object in the X coordinate system. By separating the scalar and vector parts in the equations, we obtain an overdetermined system of linear algebraic equations (SLAE), where the unknown variable is the finite rotation vector θ, which aligns the X and Y coordinate systems (it is assumed that there is no half-turn of the X coordinate system with respect to the Y coordinate system). Thus, the mathematical formulation of the problem of SINS initial alignment by means of gyrocompassing is to find the unknown vector θ from the derived overdetermined SLAE. When finding the vector θ directly from the SLAE (algorithm 1) and data containing measurement errors, the components of the vector q are also determined with errors (especially the component of the vector θ, which is responsible for the course ψ of an object). Depending on the pre-defined in the course of numerical experiments values of heading ψ, roll ϑ, pitch γ angles of an object and errors of the input data (measurements of gyroscopes and accelerometers), the errors of estimating the heading angle Δψ of an object may in many cases differ from the errors of estimating the roll Δϑ and pitch Δγ angles by two-three (typically) or more orders. Therefore, in order to smooth out these effects, we have used the A. N. Tikhonov regularization method (algorithm 2), which consists of multiplying the left and right sides of the SLAE by the transposed matrix of coefficients for that SLAE, and adding the system regularization parameter to the elements of the main diagonal of the coefficient matrix for the newly derived SLAE (if necessary, depending on the value of the determinant of this matrix). Analysis of the results of the numerical experiments on the initial alignment shows that the errors of estimating the object’s orientation angles Δψ, Δϑ, Δγ using algorithm 2 are more comparable (more consistent) regarding their order.