What effects do vibrations have on my system?

Vibrations may cause problems in combination with inertial sensing. They can affect the orientation estimate but may also make the calibration become invalid or mechanically damage the internal sensors. We recommend using some mechanical damping when mounting the motion tracker and if possible choosing a location that minimizes vibrations.

The filter implemented to estimate orientation fuses information from the three types of sensors integrated in the MTi. The accelerometers are used to provide a vertical reference through the gravitational acceleration. The magnetic sensors provide a horizontal reference through the magnetic north vector. These are used to define an earth-referenced global co-ordinate frame and are favored in (semi-) static conditions. In dynamic conditions, the gyroscopes are preferred and signals integrated to orientation.

If vibrations are continuously present, the filter may interpret these as a dynamic condition and keep relying on integrating angular velocity. Due to inherent inaccuracies, prolonged integration will introduce errors (random walk and integration drift) in the orientation output.