Rapid transfer alignment of laser SINS using quaternion based angular measurement

A novel rapid transfer alignment algorithm for laser strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS) is studied. Transfer alignment have typically relied on velocity measurements from the master SINS as the source of alignment information, but lever arm error must be compensated accurately while velocity information is utilized, all most every quaternion based error model is nonlinear, so nonlinear filtering algorithms are need, suffering from computational complex and large error. Aim at these problems, a novel improved rapid transfer alignment algorithm formulation is presented, applying quaternion to built the process and measurement models, the improvement employs a special manipulation of the measurement equation results in a linear pseudo-measurement equation, thus the classical linear Kalman filter is employed to estimate the state, need not lever arm error compensation, results in the reduce of computational burden. Observability analysis of this new transfer alignment algorithm has been done based on the piece-wise constant system (PWCS) method, results show that the presented algorithm can accomplish the initial alignment task perfectly. A transfer alignment simulation system is also developed for the evaluation and analysis of the presented algorithm, simulation results are confirmed with the theoretical conclusion, which can achieve the transfer alignment accuracy about 1 mrad within 10 s.