An attitude sensing apparatus for determining the attitude of a mobile
unit is provided that can reliably estimate an alignment angle between a
GPS antenna coordinate system and an IMU coordinate system with good
accuracy regardless of the magnitude of the alignment angle. Based on
observation of the difference between a GPS angular velocity and an IMU
angular velocity, an alignment angle estimating section estimates an
alignment angle and sensor errors. An alignment angle adder and a sensor
error adder cumulatively add and update the estimated alignment angle and
sensor errors, respectively. The estimated alignment angle is fed back to
an inertia data converter while the estimated sensor errors are fed back
to an inertia data correcting section. The apparatus repeatedly performs
estimation until the estimated alignment angle gradually approaches a
true alignment angle by successively feeding back estimated values to a
flow of alignment angle estimation process.