Accuracy Evaluation of INS/ZUPT Filtering Methods Based on Different Geometric Error Definitions

Abstract

Geometric filters have recently been introduced to improve the accuracy and consistency of inertial-based integrated navigation systems. Error states were defined through specific group operations, introducing state correlations in error definition, which were lacked in the additive error used by a conventional indirect Kalman filter. The desirable consistent filtering models can be obtained based on specific geometric errors. For zero-velocity measurements expressed in the reference frame, this paper derives left-error process and measurement models from invariant filtering, two-frame-group filtering, and equivariant filtering. Importantly, a new group operation is introduced for the left tangent-group equivariant error. The analysis shows that the two-frame-group invariant extended Kalman filter (TFG-IEKF) and the tangent-group equivariant filter (TG-EqF) do not offer a significant consistency advantage over the invariant extended Kalman filter (IEKF). Experiments with an INS/ZUPT measurement system show that, under small initial attitude errors, the conventional indirect extended Kalman filter (EKF) achieves loop-closure position errors below $0.1\%$ of the traveled distance, while the three geometric filters achieve comparable positioning accuracy.