Inertial navigation system

An inertial navigation system (INS; also inertial guidance system, inertial instrument) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors (gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (direction and speed of movement) of a moving object without the need for external references.^[1] Often the inertial sensors are supplemented by a barometric altimeter and sometimes by magnetic sensors (magnetometers) and/or speed measuring devices. INSs are used on mobile robots^[2]^[3] and on vehicles such as ships, aircraft, submarines, guided missiles, and spacecraft.^[4] Older INS systems generally used an inertial platform as their mounting point to the vehicle and the terms are sometimes considered synonymous.

Integrals in the time domain implicitly demand a stable and accurate clock for the quantification of elapsed time.

^ "Basic Principles of Inertial Navigation Seminar on inertial navigation systems" (PDF). AeroStudents.com. Tampere University of Technology, page 5. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
^ Bruno Siciliano; Oussama Khatib (20 May 2008). Springer Handbook of Robotics. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-3-540-23957-4.
^ Gerald Cook (14 October 2011). Mobile Robots: Navigation, Control and Remote Sensing. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-02904-6.
^ NASA.gov

[1] "Basic Principles of Inertial Navigation Seminar on inertial navigation systems" (PDF). AeroStudents.com. Tampere University of Technology, page 5. Retrieved 17 April 2018.

[SicilianoKhatib2008-2] Bruno Siciliano; Oussama Khatib (20 May 2008). Springer Handbook of Robotics. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-3-540-23957-4.

[Cook2011-3] Gerald Cook (14 October 2011). Mobile Robots: Navigation, Control and Remote Sensing. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-02904-6.

[4] NASA.gov

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