Emerging MEMS IMU and Its Impact on Mapping Applications

Cost and space constraints are currently driving manufacturers of Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS) and location based services to investigate and develop next generation of low cost and small size navigation systems to meet the fast growing mobile mapping and location services market demands. Advances in Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology have shown promising light towards the development of such systems. MEMS are integrated micro devices or systems combining electrical and mechanical components whose size ranges from micrometers to millimeters. MEMS is an enabling technology and the MEMS industry has a projected 10-20% annual growth rate to reach 200 billion US$ market by 2009. Advances in MEMS technology combined with the miniaturization of electronics, have made it possible to produce chip-based inertial sensor for use in measuring angular velocity and acceleration. These chips are small, lightweight, consumes very little power, and extremely reliable. It has therefore found a wide spectrum of applications in the automotive and other industrial applications. MEMS technology, therefore, can be used to develop next generation Direct Georeferencing (DG) systems that are inexpensive, small, and consume low power (microwatt). However, due to the lightweight and fabrication process, MEMS sensors have large bias instability and noise, which consequently affect the obtained accuracy from MEMS-based IMUs. For land MMS, introducing auxiliary velocity update in the body frame, (e.g. non-holonomic constraint and odometer signal) is an option to solve the problem. This paper describes the development of a MEMS IMU/GPS navigation system by the Mobile Multi-Sensor Systems (MMSS) Research Group at the University of Calgary. The development objective was to develop a fully integrated system with price range of US $100 – 200 using low-end (surface micromachined) MEMS inertial sensors. The system’s accuracy performance will be investigated by land and airborne vehicles tests.