Gyroscope-Free UAV Navigation

In this paper, it is shown that a simple geometric constraint on the sensor location of a MEMS accelerometer array in a strapdown, gyroscope-free inertial navigation system leads to a new method for computing the angular velocities of the moving body. The new method consists in decoupling the computation of linear acceleration from that of angular velocities and in deriving generic angular velocity formulas that are valid for arbitrary sensor array configurations under very mild geometric constraints on sensor placement. In particular, it is shown that the determination of angular velocities requires at least a set of four triaxial accelerometers that are not co-planar and whose barycenter coincides with the center of mass of the moving body.