What is an Inertial Navigation System?
An inertial navigation system (INS) is a self-contained device consisting of an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and computational unit. The IMU is typically made up of a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axiss gyroscope and sometimes a 3-axis magnetometer and measures the system's angular rate and acceleration. The computational unit used to determine the attitude, position, and velocity of the system based on the raw measurements from the IMU given an initial starting position and attitude.