Attitude Reference Properties of Inertial Navigation Systems

Most attitude reference systems function quite well under laboratory conditions but suffer considerable degradation in operational environments. A discussion is given of the excellent attitude reference information inherent in inertial navigation systems. Some limitations in reference system accuracy as a function of the characteristics of the gyroscopes used are given. The discussion centers primarily on attitude information from earth-orientated inertial navigation systems and includes considerations of both level and azimuth attitude information. Degradation of azimuth information at higher latitude is also discussed.