Novel attitude determination method by integration of electronic level meter,INS, and low-cost turntable for level attitude evaluation and calibration of INS

Attitude references are greatly needed for the evaluation and calibration of Inertial Navigation Systems (INSs), which are widely used in gravimeter, marine, and aeronautical navigation. High-accuracy turntable, INS, and Global Navigation Satellite System have been utilized to verify the performance of relatively low-accuracy INS. The accuracy requirement of the attitude reference continuously increases with the rapid improvement of inertial sensors and navigation algorithms. However, the cost of attitude determination system increases rapidly with the increase of attitude accuracy requirement. To solve this limitation, the integration of level meter, INS, and low-cost turntable is proposed to provide level attitude, such as roll and pitch. The turntable is utilized to rotate the INS. An integration model of the level meter and INS is built to estimate the level attitude and reduce the cost of the turntable. The proposed method successfully avoids the dependence on high-accuracy turntables. An observability degree analysis is conducted to improve the level attitude accuracy further. The simulation and turntable test results indicate that the proposed method can provide high-accuracy level attitude without high-accuracy INS or turntable and is applicable to error calibration and attitude evaluation of INS.