Inertial measuring units for future-generation aerospace products: fault-tolerance

A Strapdown Inertial Measurement Unit (SIMU) with structural redundancy intended for improving fault-tolerance and accuracy of inertial navigation systems for space applications is considered. The SIMU includes six angular rate sensors and six accelerometers, which allows for identification and correction of one fault with high probability and two faults with lower probability for each type of sensor. Known theoretical and practical techniques developed and used in this area are briefly described. The problem of optimization of measurement axes orientation is considered. The accuracy of estimation of the measured vector projections in the orthogonal instrument coordinate system serves as the criterion of optimization. A solution of this problem for no faults, one fault, and two faults is proposed. Algorithms of failure detection, identification and correction (FDIC) are analyzed. The results of testing FDIC basic algorithms with the help of mathematical simulation are considered. Optimal measurement axes configurations are compared with each other from the FDIC efficiency point of view. It is shown that neither of the methods yields 100-percent correct diagnostics not only for two faults but for one fault as well. Possible sources of incorrect diagnostics are analyzed.