Integrating accelerometer output

[Jared Russell]

Hey all,

I think I want to try going with a purely inertial guidance system this year (accelerometers and gyros) instead of encoders. I don't need position information - just relative x and y velocities (along with heading).

By integrating the gyro output at about 400Hz, I get a pretty good heading calculation. It drifts by maybe a degree or two after a few minutes of driving, but that's acceptable.

My concern is with the noise handling capabilities of the accelerometer. Between the +/- 1.7G saturation of the device, nonlinearities, and possible high frequency noise, I'm having doubts about whether my integration to obtain linear velocity will be even close to accurate, even if I clean the signal up with a low pass filter.

Has anyone done this in the past? I'd like to hear your thoughts before I waste my time and end up using encoders again anyway