Angular motion and attitude estimation using fixed and rotating accelerometers configuration

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel configuration of fixed distributed accelerometers combined with rotating accelerometers to infer the angular motion. Traditionally, fixed distributed accelerometers are configured to form a gyro-free inertial measurement unit (GF-IMU). The main advantage of using rotating accelerometer over fixed one is having direct measurements of the angular velocity. This configuration can be used to find a complete attitude solution. For static case, the heading angle is computed from angular velocity due to Earth rotation sensed by the rotating accelerometer while the tilt angles are found from the projected gravity sensed by an accelerometer triad.