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A measurement system includes all components in a chain of hardware and software that leads from a measured variable to processed data. In that context, the type and quality of the sensors or measuring devices are critical to any measurement system. MEMS/IMU sensors lag behind leading technologies in this respect, but the MEMS/IMU performance rapidly changes while is relatively inexpensive. For this reason, the paper proposes some investigations of currently available MEMS/IMUs, but in an array configuration. The article presents the results of research undertaken on this type of IMU sensor configuration under quasi-stationary and dynamic conditions and answers the question of whether the precision of current MEMS technologies for acceleration and angular velocity sensors is still improved using this kind of approach.

Small, lightweight, power-efficient and low-cost microelectromechanical system (MEMS) inertial sensors and microcontrollers available in the market today help reduce the instability of Multibeam Sonars. Current MEMS inertial measurement units (IMUs) come in many shapes, sizes, and costs - depending on the application and performance required. Although MEMS inertial sensors offer affordable and appropriately scaled units, they are not currently capable of meeting all requirements for accurate and precise attitudes, due to their inherent measurement noise. The article presents the comparison of different MEMS technologies and their parameters regarding to the main application, namely Multibeam Echo Sounders (MBES). The quality of MEMS parameters is crucial for further MBES record-processing. The article presents the results of undertaken researches in that area, and these results are relatively positive for low-cost MEMS. The paper undertakes some vital aspect of using MEMS in the attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) context. The article presents a few aspects of MEMS gyro errors and their estimation process in the context of INS processing flow, as well as points out the main difficulties behind the INS when using a few top MEMS technologies.