Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Sensors (Basel). 2018 Nov 15;18(11):3967. doi: 10.3390/s18113967.
Inertial navigation systems (INSs) use the temperature control system to ensure the stability of the temperature of the inertial sensors for improving the navigation accuracy of the INSs. That is, the temperature control accuracy affects the performance of the INSs. Thus, the performance of temperature control systems must be evaluated before their application. However, nearly all high-precision INSs are large and heavy and require long-term testing under many different experimental conditions. As a result, conducting an outdoor navigation experiment, which involves high⁻low temperature and heading rotation tests, is time consuming, laborious, and costly for researchers. To address this issue, an economical high⁻low temperature and heading rotation test method for high-precision platform INSs is proposed, and an evaluation system based on this method is developed to evaluate the performance of the temperature control systems for high-precision platform INSs indoors. The evaluation system uses an acrylic chamber, exhaust fans, temperature sensors, and an air conditioner to simulate the environment temperature change. The outer gimbals of the platform INSs are utilized to simulate the heading rotation. The temperature control system of a high-precision platform INS is evaluated using the proposed evaluation method. The temperature difference of the gyros is obtained in the high⁻low temperature test, and the temperature fluctuation of the temperature control system is observed in the rotation test. These tests verify the effectiveness of the proposed evaluation method. Then, the corresponding optimization method for the temperature control system of this high-precision platform INS is put forward on the basis of the test results of the evaluation system. Experimental results show that the maximum temperature differences of the two gyros between high- and low-temperature tests are decreased from 1.51 °C to 0.50 °C, and the maximum temperature fluctuation value of the temperature control system is decreased from 0.81 °C to 0.27 °C after the proposed evaluation and optimization processes. Therefore, the proposed methods are cost effective and useful for evaluating and optimization of the temperature control system for INSs.
惯性导航系统（INSs）使用温度控制系统来确保惯性传感器的温度稳定，从而提高 INSs 的导航精度。也就是说，温度控制精度会影响 INSs 的性能。因此，在应用之前必须对温度控制系统的性能进行评估。然而，几乎所有高精度的 INS 都很大很重，需要在许多不同的实验条件下进行长期测试。因此，对于研究人员来说，进行户外导航实验，包括高低温及航向旋转测试，既耗时、费力又昂贵。为了解决这个问题，提出了一种经济的高精度平台 INS 高低温及航向旋转测试方法，并开发了一个基于该方法的评估系统，用于室内评估高精度平台 INS 的温度控制系统性能。该评估系统使用亚克力腔、排气扇、温度传感器和空调来模拟环境温度变化。平台 INS 的外框架用于模拟航向旋转。使用所提出的评估方法对高精度平台 INS 的温度控制系统进行评估。在高低温测试中获得了陀螺仪的温差，在旋转测试中观察到了温度控制系统的温度波动。这些测试验证了所提出的评估方法的有效性。然后，在评估系统的测试结果的基础上，提出了针对该高精度平台 INS 温度控制系统的相应优化方法。实验结果表明，经过所提出的评估和优化过程，高低温测试中两个陀螺仪的最大温差从 1.51°C 降低到 0.50°C，温度控制系统的最大温度波动值从 0.81°C 降低到 0.27°C。因此，所提出的方法对于 INS 温度控制系统的评估和优化具有成本效益和实用价值。
