Calibration and Compensation of Geomagnetic Vector Measurement System and Improvement of Magnetic Anomaly Detection

The magnetometer error and distortion magnetic field of an inertial navigation system are the major two factors influencing the measurement accuracy of geomagnetic vector information measurement systems. The calibration and compensation methods are proposed in this letter. As a first step, a calibration model for a three-axis magnetometer is established, and a nonlinear least square algorithm is used to estimate thoroughly the error parameters. Then, a distortion compensation model based on relative attitude information is proposed, in which only four groups of attitude information are needed to estimate precisely the distortion parameters. Finally, the whole system is used for magnetic anomaly detection. Experimental results suggest that the magnetometer error can be accurately calibrated, and the magnetic field distortion can be suppressed significantly. After calibration and compensation, the intensity and magnetic anomaly vectors such as west vector, south vector, and vertical vector can be accurately measured by the geomagnetic vector measurement system. It demonstrates that the proposed method can effectively improve the accuracy of the geomagnetic vector measurement system.