Development of a MRE isolation system for strapdown inertial measurement unit

At present, the inertial measurement unit (IMU) is widely used in various industrial systems. The precision and service life of IMU declines due to the adverse influences of environmental vibration. Therefore, a magnetorheological elastomer (MRE) isolation system is designed to attenuate the severe vibration of the devices in three directions. Moreover, a phase-based controller (PBC) is proposed to achieve the real-time control of the isolation system. The performances of the PBC and the on-off controller are simulated for comparison under the sinusoidal and swept excitations, respectively. Finally, experiments are conducted to evaluate and verify the effectiveness of the PBC. The experimental results demonstrate that the acceleration root-mean-square of IMU system with PBC decreases by 17.67%. This study is of great significance to the design and engineering applications of the IMU isolation system.