A Highly Accurate Calibration Method for Terrestrial Laser Doppler Velocimeter

In order to obtain the accurate velocity of a vehicle, calibration of a laser Doppler velocimeter (LDV) is particularly important after installation of the inertial navigation system (INS) and LDV. The calibration accuracy determines the navigational accuracy of the INS/LDV integrated navigation system. In this paper, a highly accurate calibration method based on the error equations of the INS/LDV integrated system is presented. The basic principles of analytic calibration and filtering calibration methods are discussed in detail. The test results show that the scale factor and the installation error of the LDV can be automatically calibrated by our novel calibration method with sufficient accuracy. For a high-precision INS and a 2-D LDV integrated navigation system, after calibration, the position error of dead reckoning (DR) decreased from 1180 m in 2 h to 8 m in 2 h. For a medium precision INS and a 1-D LDV integrated navigation system, after calibration, the position error of DR decreased from 1300 m in 1 h to 25 m in 1 h. The excellent parameter stability of the LDV is also illustrated.