Learning Robotics using Python - Second Edition

Inertial navigation

An IMU provides acceleration and orientation relative to inertial space. If you know the initial position, velocity, and orientation, you can calculate the velocity by integrating the sensed acceleration and the second integration gives the position. To get the correct direction of the robot, the orientation of the robot is required; this can be obtained by integrating sensed angular velocity from a gyroscope.

The following diagram illustrates an inertial navigation system, which will convert IMU values to odometry data:

Block diagram of IMU

The values we get from the IMU are converted into navigational information using ...