Selecting the optimum inertial sensor for each specific application — A comprehensive guide based on analytic criteria and experimental data across several sensors and technologies

Abstract

It is a very difficult task to select the proper sensor performances for each applications in order to meet cost-effectiveness criteria. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive guide based on analytic criteria such as Allan variance analysis in order to highlight what are the performance requirements for several kind of inertial sensors based applications. Several types of sensor (gyroscopes and accelerometers) technologies (MEMS, FOG, CVG, QUARTZ) have been evaluated from different vendors. A comparative analysis of the meaningful parameters such as ARW, bias stability, etc. was performed, providing guidelines on how such sensor parameters relate to the various application performance requirements.