Inertial sensors are powerful motion measurement devices. They are well-known in vehicle guidance and enable a detailed capture of position, attitude, velocity, and acceleration. Due to modern technology, navigation systems based on these sensors became increasingly small, light, and inexpensive. So, they suggest themselves for motion analysis in sports as an arising application area. Considering the last decades, this paper outlines and discusses the introduction and typical usage of inertial and integrated navigation systems in sports and biomechanics respectively.

The International Space Station (ISS) project involves Russian PROGRESS transport cargo vehicles (TCV) which often keep residual resources of their basic systems after they have completed their main tasks in the ISS program. Utilization of these resources for research purposes during free flight of the TCV after its undocking from the station increases the efficiency of both the TCV operation and the ISS research program as a whole. Transport cargo vehicles can be used for investigations in various fields: in-flight tests, trials, validation and certification of various equipment, materials, and systems to the benefit other spacecraft programs; conducting the experiments within the framework of the Earth study using additionally installed equipment; experiments with microgravity taking into account specific capabilities of TCV; launch of small satellites and explorers after TCV undocking from the station and settling into specified orbit, etc. To perform investigations on the base of the PROGRESS transport cargo vehicles, new efficient technologies are proposed. These technologies required some specific methods of control to be developed. This paper addresses these technologies, as well as some of the developed control methods.

An attempt to create a gyrocompass based of a laser gyroscope rotating about the horizontal sensitive axis is discussed. Levels of errors due to various causes are estimated. The design of gyrocompass mockup is described, and results of its testing are presented.

The dither axis bending occurs in the presence of input acceleration acting on the laser block of the ring laser gyro (RLG) due to the limited transverse stiffness of the dither motor, which will cause g-sensitive misalignments under vibration environments. A novel RLG SINS dynamic error compensation method is proposed under vibration environments in this paper. G-sensitive misalignment model of the RLG unit is developed. The equivalent gyro drift model under rotation and acceleration environments is deduced to describe the dynamic error. Optimized vibration experiments are conducted to estimate the unknown parameters. Vibration experiment results prove the validity of this method.

The paper presents the information on specific design, accuracy characteristics, and results of testing of a prototype fiber-optic gyro of accuracy grade 0.01 °/h, with sensing element spool diameter of 150 mm, designed by Concern RCSI Elektropribor, JSC. The device is compared to a number of sensors of similar accuracy grade, designed by various Russian and international companies.

A mathematical model of torque-to balance MEMS gyroscope with a drive mode in plane is developed. The model considers compensational control loop, proof-mass dynamics, electromechanical nonlinear effects in capacitive transducers and the inequality of their parameters. The response of the resulting system to translational vibrations is investigated. Qualitative coincidence of simulation results with experimental data is obtained. A way of increasing vibration reliability is highlighted.

A problem of testing an inertial navigation system (INS) to verify its compliance with the requirements for its heading channel accuracy by comparing it to a reference INS with known accuracy parameters is discussed. It is demonstrated that the decisive condition for successful testing is a combination of two indicators: ratio of errors of tested and reference heading channels, and accuracy of reference channel error estimation. Formulae have been derived for the case of zero systematic error of reference heading channel, which facilitate the comparison results estimation.

A method of navigating an autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle, based on visual odometry is described. Modifications to the methods are proposed to enhance the accuracy of the vehicle localization and to reduce the cost of computations. This includes an algorithm with continuous tracking of image features, which increases the accuracy of vehicle local travel computation; an adaptive methodology of trajectory calculation is proposed, as well as a method of visual navigation of an underwater vehicle under conditions of local maneuvering, based on virtual coordinate referencing frame. Also, a method of 3D reconstruction of objects by images, essential during underwater inspections, is described.

A PZT type telescope for observations of gravity gradient and lunar rotation was developed, and a Bread Board Model (BBM) for ground experiments was completed. Some developments were made for the BBM such as a tripod with attitude control system, a stable mercury pool and a method for collecting the effects of vibrations. Laboratory experiments and field observations were performed from August to September of 2014, in order to check the entire system of the telescope and the software, and the results were compared to the centroid experiments which pursue the best accuracy of determination of the center of star images with a simple optical system. It was also investigated how the vibrations of mercury surface affect the centroid position on Charge Coupled Device (CCD). The results of the experiments showed that the effects of vibrations are almost common to stars in the same view, and they can be corrected by removing mean variation of the stars; and that the vibration of mercury surface can cause errors in centroid as large as 0.2 arcsec; and that there is a strong correlation between the Standard Deviation (SD) of variation of the centroid position and signal to noise ratio (SNR) of star images. It is likely that the accuracy of one (1) milli arcsecond is possible if SNR is high enough and the effects of vibrations are corrected.