Calibration of low-cost accelerometer and magnetometer with differential evolution

Generally, low-cost MEMS (Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems) sensors are used in many engineering applications; however, their accuracy is influenced by many factors; therefore, the calibration is an actual issue and it is necessary to be provided before its use in advanced applications. This research paper describes calibration method for three axis accelerometer and magnetometer. The calibration algorithm uses differential evolution (DE) algorithm. This calibration method calculates scale factors, misalignment angles, bias for accelerometer, and magnetic deviations for magnetometer. The performance of this method is analysed in the experiment on the module LSM303DLHC from STMicroelectronics. The experimental results are furthermore compared to the traditional methods. The results show that the root mean square error is least using DE algorithm than the traditional method.