Magnetometer heading estimation through online calibration for land navigation applications

Muhammad Iqbal; Masood Ur Rehman; Umar Iqbal Bhatti; Najam Abbas Naqvi

doi:10.47264/idea.nasij/2.1.5

Authors

Muhammad Iqbal Department of Space Sciences, Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6606-0327
Masood Ur Rehman Department of Space Sciences, Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Umar Iqbal Bhatti Department of Space Sciences, Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Najam Abbas Naqvi Department of Space Sciences, Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan | Space Education and GNSS Lab, National Center of GIS and Space Application, Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47264/idea.nasij/2.1.5

Keywords:

GNSS, MEMS-INS, AHRS, MEMS, World Magnetic Model, magnetometer, navigation, navigation applications, calibration

Abstract

For land navigation applications, the integration of the magnetometer with the combination of MEMS-INS and the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) give excellent results. During land navigation applications, the magnetometer’s heading can also be used during the GNSS outages. The calibration of the magnetometer is indispensable to calculate its accurate heading. There exist several methods for magnetometer calibration. Some are offline and some are online calibration techniques. In this paper, a calibration method is proposed to estimate the magnetometer’s parameters through online calibration in run time. In this method, the reference magnetic field is calculated from the World Magnetic Model (WMM-2020). Moreover, reference roll, pitch and heading are provided from some other sources such as GNSS, Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS), or reference INS. For different roll and pitch sectors, calibration parameters are estimated and stored. These parameters are used for magnetometer online calibration during the field testing. Both the headings obtained by the online calibration and conventional lab calibrations are analysed. Furthermore, the heading estimated through the online calibration is autonomous and fast. Subsequently, there is no user involvement in this online calibration technique and no specific movements to the device are provided. The heading obtained by novel technique is as accurate as obtained by conventional offline lab calibration.

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