Patent ID: 8887566

Claim:
An inertial measurement unit comprising: a base; three assemblies mounted in orthogonal fashion to the base in axial planar alignment, each assembly comprising: eight angle rate sensors mounted to be aligned with each other in the assembly; eight temperature sensors mounted in the assembly, each sensor for sensing a temperature of a corresponding angle rate sensor; and eight accelerometers mounted in the assembly; a signal processor mounted on the base, the signal processor adapted for signal communication with the eight angle rate sensors, the eight temperature sensors, and the eight accelerometers; and an application resident on the signal processor for: improving a precision of the signals from the eight angle rate sensors in each assembly with the use of signals from the respective eight temperature sensors; fusing the improved-precision signals from the eight angle rate sensors in each assembly to provide three respective virtual gyro data channels; and fusing signals from the eight accelerometers in each assembly to provide three respective virtual accelerometer data channels.