Systems and methods for reducing vibration-induced bias errors in inertial
sensors are disclosed. A system for reducing bias errors in an inertial
sensor operating within an environment may include a vibration detector
for sensing vibration changes within the environment proximate to the
inertial sensor, and a Kalman filter for computing an estimate of the
navigational error produced by the inertial sensor due to a
vibration-induced bias shift detected by the vibration detector. The
vibration detector can be configured to measure an accelerometer output
of the inertial sensor over a Kalman filter cycle, and then use the
standard deviation of such output to obtain a statistical measure of the
vibration within the environment. In some embodiments, the inertial
sensor may include an inertial measurement unit (IMU) connected to an
error compensation unit and strapdown navigator, each of which can be fed
navigation corrections determined by the Kalman filter.