A Novel Angle Computation and Calibration Algorithm of Bio-Inspired Sky-Light Polarization Navigation Sensor

Sensors

Zhiwen Xian²  Xiaoping Hu¹  Junxiang Lian²  Lilian Zhang²  Juliang Cao²  Yujie Wang² 

[1] College of Mechantronics and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, Hunan, China;

关键词: bio-inspired navigation sensor;    polarization skylight;    angle computation;    sensor calibration;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s140917068

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Navigation plays a vital role in our daily life. As traditional and commonly used navigation technologies, Inertial Navigation System (INS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) can provide accurate location information, but suffer from the accumulative error of inertial sensors and cannot be used in a satellite denied environment. The remarkable navigation ability of animals shows that the pattern of the polarization sky can be used for navigation. A bio-inspired POLarization Navigation Sensor (POLNS) is constructed to detect the polarization of skylight. Contrary to the previous approach, we utilize all the outputs of POLNS to compute input polarization angle, based on Least Squares, which provides optimal angle estimation. In addition, a new sensor calibration algorithm is presented, in which the installation angle errors and sensor biases are taken into consideration. Derivation and implementation of our calibration algorithm are discussed in detail. To evaluate the performance of our algorithms, simulation and real data test are done to compare our algorithms with several exiting algorithms. Comparison results indicate that our algorithms are superior to the others and are more feasible and effective in practice.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.