Simultaneous rotation scheme with dual-Axis INS for long-endurance navigation

Abstract Gyro drift aligned with Earth’s spin axis leads to longitude error divergence and latitude error oscillation, limiting the long-endurance performance of inertial navigation system in global navigation satellite system-denied environments. Traditional dual-axis alternating multi-sequence rotation schemes can modulate three-axis sensor errors, but their intermittent sensitive axis rotation weakens the modulation of slow-varying gyro drift. To address this problem, this study proposes a dual-axis simultaneous rotation scheme that continuously modulates drift in all three sensitive directions, with a system structure that provides favorable dynamic characteristics. This article introduces the system structure and theoretical basis of the proposed scheme and compares it with the traditional approach. Then, the simulation of the navigation experiment shows that the proposed scheme improves the modulation effect on the gyro slow-varying drift. To further verify its effectiveness, a series of experiments, including a 24 h static navigation comparison, a 120 h long-endurance static test, and a 48 h on-vehicle dynamic comparison experiment, were conducted. The results of comparative experiment indicate that the static and dynamic positioning accuracy improved by 72.8 % and 76.6 % , respectively, demonstrating the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed scheme.