Adaptive Kalman Filter Based on Online ARW Estimation for Compensating Low-Frequency Error of MHD ARS

Magnetohydrodynamic angular rate sensor (MHD ARS) can precisely detect angular vibration information with a bandwidth of up to one kilohertz. However, due to secondary flow and viscous force, it experiences performance degradation when measuring low-frequency angular vibrations. This article presents an adaptive Kalman filter that uses online angular random walk (ARW) estimation to correct for the low-frequency error of MHD ARS, where a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gyroscope is used to measure low-frequency vibrations. The proposed algorithm determines the signal frequency based on the ARW coefficients and adjusts the measurement noise covariance to achieve accurate fusion results. Thus, the method solves the problem of frequency-dependent variation of the amplitude response of the sensors in data fusion. Initially, the algorithm calculates the ARW coefficient recursively utilizing the measurement signals of both sensors. Then, the operational frequencies of both sensors are determined by analyzing the correlation between the ARW coefficient and frequency. Subsequently, in the Sage-Husa adaptive Kalman filter (SHAKF), the Kalman gain matrix is adjusted by modifying the measurement noise variances of both sensor signals individually. Moreover, the stability of the proposed algorithm is achieved by introducing an adaptive matrix to constrain the measurement noise covariance estimation. In the experiment, the fusion effects of single-frequency and mixed-frequency signals are tested separately. The experimental results show that for frequency variation and frequency mixing, the proposed algorithm in this study significantly improves the fusion results.