New Equipment: ISTA Inaugurates New Inertial Laboratory

22 July 2021

The Institute of Space Technology and Space Applications (ISTA) has inaugurated its new high-tech 3-axis motion simulator with an integrated thermal chamber cooled by high pressure CO2.

With a position accuracy more precise than ±2 arcsec and a rate range up to ±1000 deg/s, all IMU classes from MEMS-grade to navigation grade can be calibrated highly accurate. The temperature chamber provides a temperature range between -60 C° and +100 C°, that can cover all environmental situation and thus determine temperature dependent errors such bias or scale factor errors due to the temperature. For the calibration of the accelerometer triad the reference signal, i.e. the reference gravity, has been measured with an accuracy of 8 µGal (~8.10^-7 m/s²). For other applications such as north finding techniques, the absolute north direction has been measured with 1 mgon accuracy.

^{The new high-tech 3-axis motion simulator (© Universität der Bundeswehr München / ISTA)}

Predefined calibration routines, such as six-position-static test or turn rates, are available in the LabView software package incorporating an automatic report generator which allows for a flexible calibration procedure.

^{Image: © Universität der Bundeswehr München / ISTA}