INS-Based Aeromagnetic Compensation: Sliding Window Optimization for Enhanced Accuracy

Currently, aeromagnetic compensation research primarily relies on fluxgate magnetometers. However, with the rapid advancement of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, foldable aeromagnetic survey UAVs emerging as a research hotspot. Unlike traditional method, small UAVs cannot use long booms to extend magnetometers away from the airframe, posing significant design and operational challenges. Moreover, complex electromagnetic environments introduce unpredictable magnetic interference, severely affecting the accuracy of magnetic compensation techniques. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a novel magnetic compensation method based solely on an inertial navigation system (INS). INS that must be equipped on the aircraft is used to obtain aircraft attitude information, and a geomagnetic model is introduced to complete the function of the fluxgate in aeromagnetic detection. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves compensation performance comparable to that of conventional methods. Additionally, by using sliding window technique, this method mitigates the “jumping” issue of the Euler angle approach near “gimbal lock”, the compensation performance is improved by 27.6%. The findings indicate that this method not only optimizes the magnetic compensation capability of small UAVs but also provides a new technical pathway for aeromagnetic measurement.