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New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors

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A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "A：Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2023) | Viewed by 16011

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Prof. Dr. Shuai Chen

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Guest Editor

School of Automation, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
Interests: inertial navigation system; GNSS/INS integration; GNSS
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Changhui Jiang

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Guest Editor

Department of Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry, Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, 02430 Masala, Finland
Interests: hyperspectral LiDAR; GNSS; INS; Kalman filter; mobile mapping
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Dr. Yuwei Chen

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Department of Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry, Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, 02430 Masala, Finland
Interests: hyperspectral LiDAR; mobile mapping
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Dr. Jianxin Jia

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Department of Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry, Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, Vuorimiehentie 5, FI-02150 Espoo, Finland
Interests: hyperspectral imaging technology; hyperspectral LiDAR; infrared imaging; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

MEMS technology opens up a new avenue for manufacturing low-cost and small-volume inertial measurement units. Micro inertial sensors are ubiquitous, and can be found in smartphones, cars, and smartwatches. Signals for the micro inertial sensors are sampled and processed for various applications, e.g., health monitoring, vibration sensing, position, and navigation. For position and navigation applications in particular, micro inertial sensors are utilized for measuring the position, velocity, and attitude information, i.e., the accelerometer is utilized to detect the pedestrian step and update the position; the micro inertial sensors are employed in a car to integrate with the GNSS to provide more reliable positional information; the UAV measures its attitude using the measurements from the micro inertial sensor. Minimizing the micro inertial sensor volume and improving the quality of its measurements have attracted much attention in the scientific community. New principles, advanced manufacturing technology, and novel signal processing algorithms are expected to improve its performance and extend its applications. This Special Issue of Micromachines aims to provide a platform for researchers to publish innovative work on advances, methods, and applications as they pertain to micro inertial sensors. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Deep Learning methods for processing micro inertial sensor measurements.
New methods for GNSS/MEMS IMU integration and MEMS IMU auto-calibration.
New manufacturing technology for MEMS IMU Gyroscope array or accelerometer array technology.
New applications for MEMS IMUMEMS IMU-based pedestrian dead reckoning.
Advanced methods for MEMS IMU noise modeling and its position error suppression without GNSS.

Prof. Dr. Shuai Chen
Dr. Changhui Jiang
Prof. Dr. Yuwei Chen
Dr. Jianxin Jia
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

micro inertial sensor
MEMS IMU
position
navigation
deep learning
GNSS

Related Special Issue

New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors, 2nd Edition in Micromachines (3 articles)

Published Papers (8 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3681 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research of Frequency Splitting Caused by Uneven Mass of Micro-Hemispherical Resonator Gyro

by Lijun Song, Qingru Li, Wanliang Zhao, Tianxiang Zhang and Xing He

Micromachines 2022, 13(11), 2015; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13112015 - 18 Nov 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1217

Abstract

In practical engineering, the frequency splitting of Hemispherical Resonator Gyro (HRG) caused by uneven mass distribution seriously affects the precision of HRG. So, the inherent frequency is an important parameter of micro-Hemispherical Resonator Gyro (m-HRG). In the processing of hemispherical resonator, there are some morphological errors and internal defects in the hemispherical resonator, which affect the inherent frequency and the working mode of m-HRG, and reduce the precision and performance of m-HRG. In order to improve the precision and performance of m-HRG, the partial differential equation of the hemispherical resonator is solved, and the three-dimensional model using ANSYS software accurately reflected the actual shape is established in this paper. Then, the mode of hemispherical resonator in ideal state and uneven mass distribution state are simulated and analyzed. The frequency splitting mechanism of the hemispherical resonator is determined by calculation and demonstration, and the frequency splitting of the hemispherical resonator is suppressed by partial mass elimination. The results show that the absolute balance of energy can ensure the high-quality factor and the minimum frequency splitting of the hemispherical resonator. Therefore, during the processing of hemispherical resonator, the balance of mass should be achieved as much as possible to avoid various surface damage, internal defects and uneven mass distribution to guarantee the high-quality factor Q and minimum frequency splitting of hemispherical resonator. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors)

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23 pages, 8204 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Monocular-Visual SLAM System with Semantic and Optical-Flow Fusion for Indoor Dynamic Environments

by Weifeng Chen, Guangtao Shang, Kai Hu, Chengjun Zhou, Xiyang Wang, Guisheng Fang and Aihong Ji

Micromachines 2022, 13(11), 2006; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13112006 - 17 Nov 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2448

Abstract

A static environment is a prerequisite for the stable operation of most visual SLAM systems, which limits the practical use of most existing systems. The robustness and accuracy of visual SLAM systems in dynamic environments still face many complex challenges. Only relying on semantic information or geometric methods cannot filter out dynamic feature points well. Considering the problem of dynamic objects easily interfering with the localization accuracy of SLAM systems, this paper proposes a new monocular SLAM algorithm for use in dynamic environments. This improved algorithm combines semantic information and geometric methods to filter out dynamic feature points. Firstly, an adjusted Mask R-CNN removes prior highly dynamic objects. The remaining feature-point pairs are matched via the optical-flow method and a fundamental matrix is calculated using those matched feature-point pairs. Then, the environment’s actual dynamic feature points are filtered out using the polar geometric constraint. The improved system can effectively filter out the feature points of dynamic targets. Finally, our experimental results on the TUM RGB-D and Bonn RGB-D Dynamic datasets showed that the proposed method could improve the pose estimation accuracy of a SLAM system in a dynamic environment, especially in the case of high indoor dynamics. The performance effect was better than that of the existing ORB-SLAM2. It also had a higher running speed than DynaSLAM, which is a similar dynamic visual SLAM algorithm. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors)

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12 pages, 4877 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Novel Spiral Silicon Drift Detector with Equal Cathode Ring Gap and Given Surface Electric Fields

by Jiaxiong Sun, Zheng Li, Xiaodan Li, Xinqing Li, Xinyi Cai, Zewen Tan, Manwen Liu and Hongfei Wang

Micromachines 2022, 13(10), 1682; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13101682 - 06 Oct 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1245

Abstract

Since the advent of semiconductor detectors, they have been developed for several generations, and their performance has been continuously improved. In this paper, we propose a new silicon drift detector structure that is different from the traditional spiral SDD structure that has a gap between the cathode ring and the width of cathode ring, increasing gradually with the increase of the radius of the cathode ring. Our new structure of spiral SDD structure has equal cathode ring gap and a given surface electric field, which has many advantages compared with the traditional structure. The novel SDD structure controllably reduces the area of silicon oxide between the spiral rings, which in turn reduces the surface leakage current due to the reduction of total oxide charge in the silicon oxide and electronic states on the silicon/silicon oxide interface. Moreover, it has better controllability to adjust this spiral ring cathode gap to achieve better surface electric field distribution, thus realizing the optimal carrier drift electric field and achieving the optimal detector performance. In order to verify this theory, we have modeled this new structure and simulated its electrical properties using the Sentaurus TCAD tool. We have also analyzed and compared different spiral ring cathode gap structures (from 10 µm to 25 µm for the gap). According to the simulation results of potential, electric field, and electron concentration, we have obtained that a spiral ring cathode gap of 10 µm has the best electrical characteristics, more uniform distribution of potential and surface electric field, and a more smooth and straight electron drift channel. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors)

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18 pages, 7434 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Implementation and Performance Analysis of Constellation Dynamic Selection in Multi-Constellation RAIM

by Qian Meng, Yuan Zhuang and Shengying Li

Micromachines 2022, 13(9), 1455; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13091455 - 02 Sep 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1320

Abstract

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) plays a crucial role in many fields, such as aerospace and transportation. Integrity is the measure of trust used in GNSS positioning especially in safety-critical applications. Advanced receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (ARAIM), taking full advantage of multi-constellation GNSS, shows huge potential to provide vertical navigation in civil aviation en route navigation and terminal approaches. However, the multi-constellation ARAIM also greatly exposes computational complexity and potential performance hazards in fault modes determination and fault-tolerant positioning. From the perspective of integrity risk control, rather than the pursuit of better positioning accuracy blindly for safety-critical applications, the concept of constellation dynamic selection is proposed and implemented in ARAIM and the performance analysis is discussed in this paper. Only the best two constellations which have the best vertical geometry performance are involved in ARAIM calculation anytime anywhere. The proposed method shows superiority in both integrity availability and computational complexity in both simulations and actual GNSS signal experiments. While the computational complexity is less than 10% of that using four constellations, 100% availability under LPV-200 criteria can be achieved in worldwide coverage experiment. The proposed method also overcomes the shortcomings of ARAIM with two fixed constellations and shows good robustness under depleted scenarios. Furthermore, the statistics results from observation stations proved the applicability and generality of the proposed method under current developing GNSS constellations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors)

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13 pages, 4861 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Q-Factor Enhancement of Coupling Bragg and Local Resonance Band Gaps in Single-Phase Phononic Crystals for TPOS MEMS Resonator

by Lixia Li, Weitao He, Zhixue Tong, Haixia Liu and Miaoxia Xie

Micromachines 2022, 13(8), 1217; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13081217 - 29 Jul 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1420

Abstract

This paper presents a type of single-phase double “I” hole phononic crystal (DIH-PnC) structure, which is formed by vertically intersecting double “I” holes. By using the finite element method, the complex energy band curve, special point mode shapes, and different delay lines were calculated. Numerical results showed that DIH-PnC yielded ultra-wide band gaps with strong attenuation. The formation mechanism is attributed to the Bragg-coupled local resonance mechanism. The effects of the pore width in DIH-PnC on the band gaps were further explored numerically. Significantly, as the pore width variable, the position of the local resonance natural frequency could be modulated, and this enabled the coupling between the local resonance and the Bragg mechanism. Subsequently, we introduced this DIH-PnC into the thin-film piezoelectric-on-silicon (TPOS) resonator. The results illustrated that the anchor loss quality factor (

Q_{anc}

) of the DIH-PnC resonator was 20,425.1% higher than that of the conventional resonator and 3762.3% higher than the

Q_{anc}

of the cross-like holey PnC resonator. In addition, the effect of periodic array numbers on

Q_{anc}

was researched. When the

Q_{anc}

reached 1.12 × 10⁶, the number of the period array in DIH-PnC only needed to be 1/6 compared with cross-like holey PnC. Adopting the PnC based on the coupling Bragg and local resonance band gaps had a good effect on improving the

Q_{anc}

of the resonator. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors)

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19 pages, 8164 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multipath/NLOS Detection Based on K-Means Clustering for GNSS/INS Tightly Coupled System in Urban Areas

by Hao Wang, Shuguo Pan, Wang Gao, Yan Xia and Chun Ma

Micromachines 2022, 13(7), 1128; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13071128 - 17 Jul 2022

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2006

Abstract

Due to the massive multipath effects and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) signal receptions, the accuracy and reliability of GNSS positioning solution can be severely degraded in a highly urbanized area, which has a negative impact on the performance of GNSS/INS integrated navigation. Therefore, this paper proposes a multipath/NLOS detection method based on the K-means clustering algorithm for vehicle GNSS/INS integrated positioning. It comprehensively considers different feature parameters derived from GNSS raw observations, such as the satellite-elevation angle, carrier-to-noise ratio, pseudorange residual, and pseudorange rate consistency to effectively classify GNSS signals. In view of the influence of different GNSS signals on positioning results, the K-means clustering algorithm is exploited to divide the observation data into two main categories: direct signals and indirect signals (including multipath and NLOS signals). Then, the multipath/NLOS signal is separated from the observation data. Finally, this paper uses the measured vehicle GNSS/INS observation data, including offline dataset and online dataset, to verify the accuracy of signal classification based on double-differenced pseudorange positioning. A series of experiments conducted in typical urban scenarios demonstrate that the proposed method could ameliorate the positioning accuracy significantly compared with the conventional GNSS/INS integrated navigation. After excluding GNSS outliers, the positioning accuracy of the offline dataset is improved by 16% and 85% in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively, and the positioning accuracy of the online dataset is improved by 21% and 41% in the two directions. This method does not rely on external geographic information data and other sensors, which has better practicability and environmental adaptability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors)

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15 pages, 4291 KiB

Open AccessArticle

RGB-D Visual SLAM Based on Yolov4-Tiny in Indoor Dynamic Environment

by Zhanyuan Chang, Honglin Wu, Yunlong Sun and Chuanjiang Li

Micromachines 2022, 13(2), 230; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13020230 - 30 Jan 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3214

Abstract

For a SLAM system operating in a dynamic indoor environment, its position estimation accuracy and visual odometer stability could be reduced because the system can be easily affected by moving obstacles. In this paper, a visual SLAM algorithm based on the Yolov4-Tiny network is proposed. Meanwhile, a dynamic feature point elimination strategy based on the traditional ORBSLAM is proposed. Besides this, to obtain semantic information, object detection is carried out when the feature points of the image are extracted. In addition, the epipolar geometry algorithm and the LK optical flow method are employed to detect dynamic objects. The dynamic feature points are removed in the tracking thread, and only the static feature points are used to estimate the position of the camera. The proposed method is evaluated on the TUM dataset. The experimental results show that, compared with ORB-SLAM2, our algorithm improves the camera position estimation accuracy by 93.35% in a highly dynamic environment. Additionally, the average time needed by our algorithm to process an image frame in the tracking thread is 21.49 ms, achieving real-time performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors)

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10 pages, 13341 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Sub-1 Hz Resonance Frequency Resonator Enabled by Multi-Step Tuning for Micro-Seismometer

by Jun Wu, Hideyuki Maekoba, Arnaud Parent and Tamio Ikehashi

Micromachines 2022, 13(1), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13010063 - 30 Dec 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1631

Abstract

We propose a sub-1 Hz resonance frequency MEMS resonator that can be used for seismometers. The low resonance frequency is achieved by an electrically tunable spring with an ultra-small spring constant. Generally, it is difficult to electrically fine-tune the resonance frequency at a near-zero spring constant because the frequency shift per voltage will diverge at the limit of zero spring constant. To circumvent this issue, we propose a multi-step electrical tuning method. We show by simulations that the resonance frequency can be tuned by 0.008 Hz/mV even in the sub-1 Hz region. The small spring constant, however, reduces the shock robustness and dynamic range of the seismometer. To prevent this, we employ a force-balanced method in which the mass displacement is nulled by the feedback force. We show that the displacement can be obtained from the voltage that generates the feedback force. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances, Methods, and Applications for Micro Inertial Sensors)

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