Analysis of comparative filter algorithm effect on an IMU

Sammanfattning: An IMU is a sensor with many differing use cases, it makes use of an accelerometer, gyroscope and sometimes a magnetometer. One of the biggest problems with IMU sensors is the effect vibrations can have on their data. The reason for this study is to find a solution to this problem by filtering the data. The tests for this study were conducted in cooperation with Husqvarna using two of their automowers. The tests were made by running the automowers across different surfaces and recording the IMU data. To find filters for the IMU data a comprehensive literature survey was conducted to find suitable methods to filter out vibrations. The two filters selected for further testing were the complementary filter and the LMS filter. When the tests had been run all the data was added to data sheets where it could be analyzed and have the filters added to the data. From the gathered data the data spikes were clearly visible and were more than enough to trigger the mower's emergency stop and need to be manually reset. The vibrations were too irregular to filter using the LMS filter since it requires a known signal to filter against. Hence only the complementary filter was implemented fully. With the complementary filter these vibrations can be minimized and brought well below the level required to trigger an emergency stop. With a high filter weight constant such as 0.98, the margin of error from vibrations can be brought down to +- 1 degrees as the lowest and +- 4,6 degrees as highest depending on the surface and automower under testing. The main advantage with using the complementary filter is that it only requires one weight constant to adjust the filter intensity making it easy to use. The one disadvantage is that the higher the weight constant is the more delay there is on the data.