Magnetometer-Augmented IMU Simulator: In-Depth Elaboration

• Main Authors: Thomas Brunner, Jean-Philippe Lauffenburger, Sébastien Changey, Michel Basset
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2015-03-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: simulator; magnetometer; absolute magnetic reference; IMU; modeling
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/15/3/5293

The location of objects is a growing research topic due, for instance, to the expansion of civil drones or intelligent vehicles. This expansion was made possible through the development of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), inexpensive and miniaturized inertial sensors. In this context, this article describes the development of a new simulator which generates sensor measurements, giving a specific input trajectory. This will allow the comparison of pose estimation algorithms. To develop this simulator, the measurement equations of every type of sensor have to be analytically determined. To achieve this objective, classical kinematic equations are used for the more common sensors, i.e., accelerometers and rate gyroscopes. As nowadays, the MEMS inertial measurement units (IMUs) are generally magnetometer-augmented, an absolute world magnetic model is implemented. After the determination of the perfect measurement (through the error-free sensor models), realistic error models are developed to simulate real IMU behavior. Finally, the developed simulator is subjected to different validation tests.