Application of correlation detection in rotation-modulation north-seeking based on MEMS gyroscope

MEMS gyroscope has been recently the hotspot in inertial measurements applications, because of its advantage of low costs, micro size, and low power consumption, etc. But it is considered that MEMS gyroscope cannot be used in north-seeking because of its drift and noise. This paper has proposed a feasible rotation-modulation north-seeking method, in which correlation analysis is used to detect the modulated wave phase to give the relative direction to true north. Self-correlation detection, cross-correlation detection and Least Squares are presented in detail consisting of the systemic correlation detection approach. With the help of correlation detection, experimental results show that the rotation-modulation north-seeking method proposed in this paper gives impressive precision of north-seeking.