Attitude Estimation of Skis in Ski Jumping Using Low-Cost Inertial Measurement Units

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to estimate the attitude of skis for an entire ski jump using wearable, MEMS-based, low-cost Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs). First of all, a kinematic attitude model based on rigid-body dynamics and a sensor error model considering bias and scale factor error are established. Then, an extended Rauch-Tung-Striebel (RTS) smoother is used to combine measurement data provided by both gyroscope and magnetometer to achieve an attitude estimation. Moreover, parameters for the bias and scale factor error in the sensor error model and the initial attitude are determined via a maximum-likelihood principle based parameter estimation algorithm. By implementing this approach, an attitude estimation of skis is achieved without further sensor calibration. Finally, results based on both the simulated reference data and the real experimental measurement data are presented, which proves the practicability and the validity of the proposed approach.

Keywords

• attitude estimation
• inertial measurement units
• extended Rauch-Tung-Striebel smoother
• maximum-likelihood parameter estimation
• ski jumping