A novel method for the self-calibration of a tri-axial magnetic compass is discussed in this paper. Firstly, the conventional calibration method of tri-axial magnetometer in compass based on ellipsoid fitting is theoretically analyzed, and its weakness is demonstrated. Secondly, an improved calibration scheme for both the magnetometer and accelerometer in a tri-axial magnetic compass is proposed, which utilize the invariance of the dot product of two constant vectors and can overcome the disadvantages of the ellipsoid fitting method. The proposed method is verified by numerical simulation and experiment, and the results prove its superiority over the conventional algorithm of ellipsoid fitting.

Date Published: 31 January 2013
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8759, Eighth International Symposium on Precision Engineering Measurement and Instrumentation, 875948 (31 January 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2014427

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8759:
Eighth International Symposium on Precision Engineering Measurement and Instrumentation
Jie Lin, Editor(s)