Abstract: A method for reducing bias drift in electrical-mechanical systems sensor such as an accelerometer is provided. The method includes the steps of arranging at least one accelerometer in a chamber and initiating a plurality of temperature cycle sets. Each temperature cycle set has a minimum temperature, a maximum temperature, and a ramp rate. The conditioning method monitors the accelerometers until a bias drift is stabilized within a desired bias drift range. The minimum temperature and the maximum temperature limit a temperature range in which the accelerometer is cycled. Use of temperature limiting can quickly accelerate stabilization of the bias drift while also reducing degradation.

Abstract: A method and system is provided for estimating and compensating for gyro bias in gyro-stabilized systems. The method includes comparing an output of a gyroscope to a reference measurement; estimating a bias of the gyroscope based on the comparison using a Kalman filter; and adjusting a control output of the gyro-stabilized system with the estimated bias to maintain a position of the gyro-stabilized system.

Abstract: The disclosed invention provides a method that exploits the correlations in the statistical properties of one inertial sensor to another. Among the dominant noise sources, the additive noise terms for different sensors are uncorrelated, however, there may be correlations between the random drift of different sensors. The method of the present invention estimates these correlations from a finite amount of calibration data in order to calculate coefficients for the optimal linear combination of multiple sensor signals. The method is a means of combining the multiple sensor outputs to obtain a virtual sensor signal with reduced drift, and in a far more time efficient and less processor intensive way than the prior art.

Abstract: A high performance solid-state heading sensor for underwater towed arrays is taught that combines high quality MEMS sensor components with data processing filters to resolve performance limitations present in prior art heading sensors. The heading sensor employs rate gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetometers and a customized Kalman filter formulation implemented on a micro-controller to improve performance in determining the roll, pitch and heading of a towed array.