This paper presents work conducted in preparation for a suborbital test flight to test an inertial measurement unit’s (IMU’s) ability to serve as a position determination mechanism in a GPS-denied environment. Because the IMU could potentially be used at several points during flight, it is not guaranteed that a GPS fix can be used to reset the IMU after the stresses of launch. Due to this, the specific goal of this work is to characterize whether a rocket launch disrupts the IMU-based position knowledge to the extent that it is unusable. This paper discusses preparations for a sub-orbital launch mission to this end. It include a description of the hardware and software used. A discussion of the data logging mechanism and the onboard and post-flight processing which is required to compare the GPS fixes and IMU-generated positions is also presented. Finally, the utility of an IMU capable of maintaining position awareness during launch is discussed.

Date Published: 22 May 2015
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9469, Sensors and Systems for Space Applications VIII, 94690H (22 May 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2177611

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9469:
Sensors and Systems for Space Applications VIII
Khanh D. Pham; Genshe Chen, Editor(s)