A Modified Tolles–Lawson Model Robust to the Errors of the Three-Axis Strapdown Magnetometer

The estimating of the Tolles-Lawson model's coefficients plays an important role in aeromagnetic compensation. The directional cosines, which are indispensable for estimating the coefficients, are usually measured by a three-axis strapdown magnetometer in a general aeromagnetic survey system. However, in some cases, the scalar magnetometer may have a much higher accuracy than the three-axis strapdown magnetometer. This imbalance of the measurement accuracy is then introduced into the Tolles-Lawson model and affects the estimation of the coefficients. In this letter, a modified Tolles-Lawson model is introduced to reduce the imbalance through substituting the error model of the three-axis strapdown magnetometer into the calculation of the directional cosines. The characteristics of the modified model are analyzed and the corresponding coefficient-estimating system is developed. Simulation results illustrate that the modified model is more robust to the larger errors of the three-axis strapdown magnetometer than the classical model.