AGISim, An Open Source Airborne Gimbal Mounted IMU Signal Simulator Considering Flight Dynamics Model

Kazemi, Alireza; Rohani Sarvestani, Reza

doi:10.22034/jast.2025.301494.1092

AGISim, An Open Source Airborne Gimbal Mounted IMU Signal Simulator Considering Flight Dynamics Model

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Alireza Kazemi ¹

Reza Rohani Sarvestani ²

¹ Assitant Prof., Mathematics Dept., Faculty of Science, Shiraz University, Fars, Iran. Research Dept., System Intelligizers Co. (SICO), Shiraz, Fars, Iran.

² Assistant Prof., Computer Eng. Dept., Engineering School, Shahrekord University, Iran. Research Dept., System Intelligizers Co. (SICO), Shiraz, Fars, Iran.

10.22034/jast.2025.301494.1092

Abstract

In this work we present more comprehensive evaluations on our airborne Gimbal mounted inertial measurement unit (IMU) signal simulator which also considers flight dynamic model (FDM). A flexible IMU signal simulator is an enabling tool in design, development, improvement, test and verification of aided inertial navigation systems (INS). Efforts by other researchers had been concentrated on simulation of the strapdown INS (SINS) with the IMU rigidly attached to the moving body frame. However custom airborne surveying/mapping applications that need pointing and stabilizing camera or any other surveying sensor, require mounting the IMU beside the sensor on a Gimbal onboard the airframe. Hence the proposed Gimbal mounted IMU signal simulator is of interest whilst itself requires further analysis and verifications. Extended evaluation results in terms of both unit tests and functional/integration tests (using aided inertial navigation algorithms with variable/dynamic lever arms), verifies the simulator and its applicability for the mentioned tasks. We have further packaged and published our MATLAB code for the proposed simulator as an open source GitHub repository.

Keywords

Gimbal Mounted IMU

Simulator

Strapdown INS

Flight Dynamics Model

Dynamic Lever Arms

Subjects

Aerospace Science and Technology

[1] P. D. Groves, Principles of GNSS, inertial, and multisensor integrated navigation systems, 2^nd edition, Boston, Artech House, 2013.

[2] A. Noureldin, T. B. Karamat and J. Georgy, Fundamentals of Inertial Navigation, Satellite-based Positioning and their Integration, New York, Springer Verlag, 2013.

[3] J. G. McAnanama, and G. Marsden, “An open source flight dynamics model and IMU signal simulator,” in 2018 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS), pp. 874-881. 2018, https://doi.org/ 10.1109/PLANS.2018.8373465.

[4] J. W. Seo, H. K. Lee, J. G. Lee, and C. G. Park, “Lever arm compensation for GPS/INS/odometer integrated system," International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 247-254, 2006.

[5] J. Otegui, A. Bahillo, I. Lopetegi, and L. E. Diez, “Simulation Framework for Testing Train Navigation Algorithms Based on 9-DOF-IMU and Tachometers,” IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 69, no. 7, pp. 5260-5273, 2019, https://doi.org/ 10.1109/TIM.2019.2957892

[6] Y. Gao, S. Liu, M. M. Atia, and A. Noureldin, “INS/GPS/LiDAR integrated navigation system for urban and indoor environments using a hybrid scan matching algorithm,” Sensors, vol. 15, no. 9, 2015, https://doi.org/ 10.3390/s150923286

[7] C. Micklisch, N. Hilliard, and H. ElAarag, “Modeling and simulation of autonomous quadrotor systems and their onboard sensors,” Simulation, vol. 97, Issue 3, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1177/0037549720974753

[8] Britanica Encyclopedia, “Strapdown Inertial Navigation System,” 2019, [Online]. Available: https://www.britannica.com/technology/inertial-guidance-system#ref823353. [Accessed: 05-Sep-2019].

[9] I. Y. Bar-Itzhack and Y. Vitek, “The enigma of false bias detection in a strapdown system during transfer alignment,” Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 175-180, 1985, Cit. in AiAA, https://doi.org/10.2514/3.19956.

[10] T. J. Kim, J. R. Fellerhoff, and S. M. Kohler, “An integrated navigation system using GPS carrier phase for real-time airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR),” in Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1999), pp. 263-272. 1999, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-4296.2001.tb00224.x.

[11] Q. Fu, S. Li, Y. Liu, Q. Zhou, and F. Wu, “Automatic Estimation of Dynamic Lever Arms for a Position and Orientation System,” Sensors, vol. 18, no. 12, 2018, Cit. in pubmed, https://doi.org/10.3390/s150923286.

[12] Novatel Docs, “Variable Lever Arm, SPAN Configuration Commands,” 2021, [Online]. Available: https://docs.novatel.com/OEM7/Content/SPAN_Configuration/Variable_Lever_Arm.htm.[Accessed: 20-Feb-2021].

[13] Y. Yang, N. El-Shelmy, C. Goodall, and X. Nu, “IMU Signal Software Simulator,” in Proceedings of the 2007 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, pp. 532-538, 2007.

[14] M. E. Pares, J. J. Rosales, and I. Colomina, “Yet another IMU simulator: validation and applications,” in Proceedings of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing International Calibration and Orientation Workshop, 2008.

[15] W. Zhang, M. Ghogho, and B. Yuan, “Mathematical Model and Matlab Simulation of Strapdown Inertial Navigation System,” Modelling and Simulation in Engineering, vol. 2012, pp. 1-25, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/264537.

[16] M. E. Pars, J. A. Navarro, and I. Colomina, “On the generation of realistic simulated inertial measurements,” in 2015 DGON Inertial Sensors and Systems Symposium (ISS), pp. 1-15, 2015, https://doi.org/ 10.1109/InertialSensors 2015.7314268.

[17] J. S. Berndt and A. D. Marco, “JSBSim, An Open Source Flight Dynamics Model in C++,” AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Conference and Exhibit, 16-19 August 2004, Providence, Rhode Island, p. 27, 2004, https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2004-4923.

[18] B. N. Vu, K. N. Nguyen, and M. H. Vu, “Practical Considerations of IMU Data Generator,” in 2019 3rd International Conference on Recent Advances in Signal Processing, Telecommunications & Computing (SigTelCom), pp. 63-68. IEEE, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1109/SIGTELCOM.2019.8696196.

[19] K. Chen, F. Shen, J. Zhou, and X. Wu, “Simulation platform for SINS/GPS integrated navigation system of hypersonic vehicles based on flight mechanics,” Sensors, vol. 20, no. 18, , pp. 5418, 2020.

[20] A-R. Kazemi, R. Rohani Sarvestani, “An Airborne and Gimbal Mounted IMU Signal Simulator Considering Flight Dynamics Model,” The 19th International Conference of Iranian Aerospace Society (AERO2021), 2020, https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185418.

[21] A-R. Kazemi, R. Rohani Sarvestani, “AGISim, An Open Source Airborne Gimbal Mounted IMU Signal Simulator Considering Flight Dynamics Model,” GitHub Repository, 2024, [Online]. Available: https://github.com/sico-res/ag-imu-sim, [Accessed: 19-Mar-2024].