GPS Aided Inertial Navigation

The Global Positioning System is an extremely accurate satellite-based navigation system which, after its completion in 1989, will provide users worldwide, 24 hour. all weather coverage. A joint research project among Boeing, Rockwell-Collins, and Northrop has been completed in which a GPS receiver was integrated with a low-cost strap-down inertial navigation system and a flight computer. A Kalman filter in the latter allows in-fight alignment and calibration of the INS. In addition, feedback from the INS to the GPS receiver improves the system's ability to reacquire satellite signals after outages. The resulting system combines the accuracy of GPS with the jamming immunity and autonomy of inertial navigation. System tests were conducted in which a Boeing owned T-33 jet aircraft was flown through known test pattern to align and calibrate the INS. Earlier tests, including tests against an airborne jammer, were conducted in a modified passenger bus.     

GPS/惯性组合方式讨论与导航精度分析

 本文讨论GPS/惯性组合两种方式的优缺点。并以GPS伪距和伪距率与惯导组合为例,按GPS测量误差的不同,以及使用差分机等情况,仿真计算了机载使用的组合导航性能,进行了详细的精度分析。结果表明,这种组合的导航精度比GPS和惯导各自的导航精度高。在采用差分GPS机与惯导组合后,位置误差将进一步减少,使组合导航具有开辟例如飞机进场着陆等新的使用领域的可能性。     

GPS/INS integration on the Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM)

The Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) is a worldwide, all-weather, precision-strike weapon system deployed from carrier-based aircraft. In the primary mode of operation, target location and other mission data are generated from intelligence sources available on the aircraft carrier and loaded into the missile prior to aircraft takeoff. After missile launch, the SLAM inertial navigation system (INS) guides the missile along the planned trajectory. Updating the missile INS from the Global Positioning System (GPS) during flight provides precise midcourse navigation and enhances target acquisition by accurate, on-target pointing of the SLAM Maverick seeker. The GPS/INS avionics and software integration used for SLAM are described in detail, along with some of the design tradeoffs that led to the approach. The avionics configuration integrates the Harpoon midcourse guidance unit, which includes a strapdown inertial sensor package and digital processor, with a Rockwell-Collins single-channel, sequential GPS receiver processor unit (RPU), a derivative of the GPS phase-III user equipment. In addition to the GPS receiver elements the RPU contains the navigation processor, which executes the SLAM navigation, Kalman filter algorithms, and other guidance algorithms including seeker pointing. Flight-test results of the SLAM GPS-aided INS are also included     

基于联邦滤波结构的INS／GPS组合导航系统数据融合研究

为了研究平台式惯导INS（interial navigation system）和全球定位系统GPS（globe position system）组合导航联邦滤波器的实现,使用速度局部滤波器和位置局部滤波器,分别对INS／GPS组合导航系统的向东速度、向北速度,以及对经度和纬度进行卡尔曼滤波,然后将位置数据和速度数据输入主滤波进行数据融合。以无人机的向东匀速水平飞行为背景,运用联邦卡尔曼滤波器算法,使用matelab进行仿真分析。可以证明联邦滤波器算法简单,易于实现,并且可以提高导航系统精度．实际应用中此方法可行。     

Balloon gravimetry using GPS and INS

Measurement of the horizontal components of gravity at altitude using balloon-borne instrumentation consisting of a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and a strapdown inertial navigation system (INS) is discussed. GPS data are to be used primarily to determine the total inertial acceleration of the balloon, while the INS accelerometers sense all nongravitational accelerations. A covariance analysis based on the Kalman filter shows that conventional gravity estimation from GPS-aided INS data is possible only if external attitude updates are also available. An alternative technique is explored that attempts to estimate at least part of the gravitational spectrum without modeling the gravity disturbance as a state variable or relying on external attitude updates, while, at the same time, admitting uncorrected (long-wavelength) attitude errors. Simulations based on a model for typical balloon motion are used to discuss this possibility     

用于SAR运动补偿的DGPS/SINS组合系统研究

使用考虑位置误差相关项的伪距率观测模型 ,研究了用于合成孔径雷达运动补偿的差分 GPS/ SINS伪距率组合系统。结果表明 ,组合系统的长期位置精度能达到 1 m左右。 GPS数据更新率低于 INS,在 GPS测量时间间隔内 ,组合系统的性能仅由 INS决定。虽然 INS误差随时间积累 ,在 GPS数据更新率为 1 s的情况下 ,即使采用中等精度的惯性仪表 ,其相对位置精度为厘米级 (这里相对位置精度指组合系统在 GPS测量时间间隔内位置误差的变化范围)。     

Enhancing filter robustness in cascaded GPS-INS integrations

Filter robustness is defined herein as the ability of the Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System (GPS-INS) Kalman filter to cope with adverse environments and input conditions, to successfully identify such conditions and to take evasive action. The formulation of two such techniques for a cascaded GPS-INS Kalman filter integration is discussed This is an integration in which the navigation solution from a GPS receiver is used as a measurement in the filter to estimate inertial errors and instrument biases. The first technique presented discusses the handling of GPS position biases. These are due to errors in the GPS satellite segment, and are known to be unobservable. They change levels when a satellite constellation change occurs, at which point they introduce undesirable filter response transients. A method of suppressing these transients is presented. The second technique presented deals with the proper identification of the filter measurement noise. Successful formulation of the noise statistics is a factor vital to the healthy estimation of the filter gains and operation. Furthermore, confidence in the formulation of these statistics can lead to the proper screening and rejection of bad data in the filter. A method of formulating the filter noise statistics dynamically based on inputs from the GPS and the INS is discussed     

基于神经网络的航天器GPS/INS组合定姿系统

基于GPS和惯性技术的组合导航系统是近年来导航系统的研究热点和主要发展方向.目前基于卡尔曼滤波方法的算法在稳定性、计算量、算法鲁棒性以及系统可观测性等方面仍然存在问题.基于神经网络技术研究了一种新的GPS/INS组合定姿自适应卡尔曼滤波方法,理论分析表明,该方法不但对姿态信息具有较好的估计性能,而且对系统模型的精确性、噪声特性具备良好的鲁棒性.最后,利用模拟数据对所研究算法进行了分析计算,与传统的卡尔曼滤波方法进行了比较、分析,结果表明所设计组合算法在精度、稳定性以及鲁棒性等方面较传统卡尔曼方法具有良好的特性.     

New low cost avionics with INS/GPS for a variety of vehicles

Development of a new vehicle avionics suite is described, including integration of a low-cost, tightly-coupled integrated Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) to support vehicle guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C). A wide variety of next-generation low-cost launch vehicles could potentially benefit from integrated INS/GPS technology for GN&C and/or range safety applications. Coleman Aerospace Company (CAC) has developed a new low-cost avionics suite, the generic Integrated Mission Guidance & Tracking System (IMGTS), an open architecture, modular system that supports the requirements for various guidance applications and range safety tracking. As part of this development, Boeing North American, Inc. is supplying its Modular Miniature Integrated GPS/INS Tactical System (M-MIGITS^TM) Military-Off-The-Shelf (MOTS) INS/GPS product to support CAC's IMGTS GN&C     

卡尔曼滤波在某型组合导航系统模拟器中的应用

为提高某型GPS／INS组合导航系统模拟器模拟数据的真实性和飞行软件包、GPS模拟器、组合导航系统模拟器三者交联的有效性,在该模拟器中设计了卡尔曼滤波器。文中在介绍模拟器工作原理的基础上,建立了GPS／INS位置与速度组合方式下的卡尔曼滤波器的状态方程和量测方程,用U-D分解法建立了卡尔曼滤波方程,给出了纯惯导及组合后系统的位置与速度误差仿真曲线,并对仿真结果进行了系统测试,最后与其它模拟器进行了组网导航训练测试。     

GPS/BDS/INS tightly coupled integration accuracy improvement using an improved adaptive interacting multiple model with classified measurement update

An Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is commonly used to fuse raw Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements and Inertial Navigation System (INS) derived measurements. However, the Conventional EKF (CEKF) suffers the problem for which the uncertainty of the statistical properties to dynamic and measurement models will degrade the performance. In this research, an Adaptive Interacting Multiple Model (AIMM) filter is developed to enhance performance. The soft-switching property of Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) algorithm allows the adaptation between two levels of process noise, namely lower and upper bounds of the process noise. In particular, the Sage adaptive filtering is applied to adapt the measurement covariance on line. In addition, a classified measurement update strategy is utilized, which updates the pseudorange and Doppler observations sequentially. A field experiment was conducted to validate the proposed algorithm, the pseudorange and Doppler observations from Global Positioning System (GPS) and BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) were post-processed in differential mode. The results indicate that decimeter-level positioning accuracy is achievable with AIMM for GPS/INS and GPS/BDS/INS configurations, and the position accuracy is improved by 35.8%, 34.3% and 33.9% for north, east and height components, respectively, compared to the CEKF counterpart for GPS/BDS/INS. Degraded performance for BDS/INS is obtained due to the lower precision of BDS pseudorange observations.     

Fuzzy corrections in a GPS/INS hybrid navigation system

A new concept regarding GPS/INS integration, based on artificial intelligence, i.e. adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is presented. The GPS is used as reference during the time it is available. The data from GPS and inertial navigation system (INS) are used to build a structured knowledge base consisting of behavior of the INS in some special scenarios of vehicle motion. With the same data, the proposed fuzzy system is trained to obtain the corrected navigation data. In the absence of the GPS information, the system will perform its task only with the data from INS and with the fuzzy correction algorithm. This paper shows, using Matlab simulations, that as long as the GPS unavailability time is no longer than the previous training time and for the scenarios a priori defined, the accuracy of trained ANFIS, in absence of data from a reference navigation system, is better than the accuracy of stand-alone INS. The flexibility of model is also analyzed.     

Constructive neural-networks-based MEMS/GPS integration scheme

This article exploits the idea of developing an alternative data fusion scheme that integrates the outputs of low-cost micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) inertial measurements units (IMUs) and receivers of the global positioning system (GPS). The proposed scheme is implemented using a constructive neural network (cascade-correlation network (CCNs)) to overcome the limitations of conventional techniques that are predominantly based on the Kalman filter (KF). The CNN applied in this research has the advantage of having a flexible topology if compared with the recently utilized multi-layer feed-forward neural networks (MFNNs) for inertial navigation system (INS)/GPS integration. The preliminary results presented in this article illustrate the effectiveness of proposed CCNs over both MFNN-based and Kalman filtering techniques for INS/GPS integration.     

Online INS/GPS integration with a radial basis function neural network

Most of the present navigation systems rely on Kalman filtering to fuse data from global positioning system (GPS) and the inertial navigation system (INS). In general, INS/GPS integration provides reliable navigation solutions by overcoming each of their shortcomings, including signal blockage for GPS and growth of position errors with time for INS. Present Kalman filtering INS/GPS integration techniques have some inadequacies related to the stochastic error models of inertial sensors, immunity to noise, and observability. This paper aims to introduce a multi-sensor system integration approach for fusing data from INS and GPS utilizing artificial neural networks (ANN). A multi-layer perceptron ANN has been recently suggested to fuse data from INS and differential GPS (DGPS). Although being able to improve the positioning accuracy, the complexity associated with both the architecture of multi-layer perceptron networks and its online training algorithms limit the real-time capabilities of this technique. This article, therefore, suggests the use of an alternative ANN architecture. This architecture is based on radial basis function (RBF) neural networks, which generally have simpler architecture and faster training procedures than multi-layer perceptron networks. The INS and GPS data are first processed using wavelet multi-resolution analysis (WRMA) before being applied to the RBF network. The WMRA is used to compare the INS and GPS position outputs at different resolution levels. The RBF-ANN module is then trained to predict the INS position errors and provide accurate positioning of the moving platform. Field-test results have demonstrated that substantial improvement in INS/GPS positioning accuracy could be obtained by applying the combined WRMA and RBF-ANN modules.     

DQI-NP application to the OutriderTM Tactical UnmannedAerial Vehicle (TUAV)

A wide variety of applications can benefit from integrated Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) technology. However, in many situations, the end user has a preference for a specific GPS receiver. Additionally, in most cases, the user does not desire to expend the time and money necessary to perform a custom INS/GPS integration, but instead wants a low-cost off-the-shelf solution. To address these applications, Boeing has developed the Digital Quartz Inertial Measurement Unit (DQI IMU)-Navigation Processor (DQI-NP) product as an extension of its Miniature Integrated GPS/INS Tactical System (MIGITS^TM) family of integrated INS/GPS products. This paper describes the DQI-NP and its application to the Outrider^TM Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV). The DQI-NP, as currently integrated into the Outrider^TM TUAV, is coupled with a custom Trimble GPS receiver combined with major embedded firmware modifications by IntegriNautics. In conjunction with differential GPS and ground based pseudolites, the overall system is intended to provide autonomous landing capability to the Outrider TUAV. DQI-NP provides an available, low-cost, commercial-off-the-shelf/non-development item (COTS/NDI) solution to a variety of commercial and military applications, of which the Outrider ^TM TUAV is an excellent example     

Multipath-adaptive GPS/INS receiver

Multipath interference is one of the contributing sources of errors in precise global positioning system (GPS) position determination. This paper identifies key parameters of a multipath signal, focusing on estimating them accurately in order to mitigate multipath effects. Multiple model adaptive estimation (MMAE) techniques are applied to an inertial navigation system (INS)-coupled GPS receiver, based on a federated (distributed) Kalman filter design, to estimate the desired multipath parameters. The system configuration is one in which a GPS receiver and an INS are integrated together at the level of the in-phase and quadrature phase (I and Q) signals, rather than at the level of pseudo-range signals or navigation solutions. The system model of the MMAE is presented and the elemental Kalman filter design is examined. Different parameter search spaces are examined for accurate multipath parameter identification. The resulting GPS/INS receiver designs are validated through computer simulation of a user receiving signals from GPS satellites with multipath signal interference present The designed adaptive receiver provides pseudo-range estimates that are corrected for the effects of multipath interference, resulting in an integrated system that performs well with or without multipath interference present.     

Design and Development of a Real-Time DSP and FPGA-Based Integrated GPS-INS System for Compact and Low Power Applications

Emphasis of the present work is on an elegant real-time solution for GPS/INS integration. Micro-electro mechanical system (MEMS) based inertial sensors are light but not accurate enough for inertial navigation system (INS) applications. An integrated INS/GPS system provides better accuracy compared with either INS or GPS, used individually. This paper describes an improved design and fabrication of a loosely coupled INS-GPS integrated system. The systems currently available use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and are, therefore, not optimized for compact, single supply, and low power requirements. In the proposed system, a digital signal processor (DSP) is used for inertial navigation solution and Kalman filter computations. A field programmable gate array (FPGA) is used for creating an efficient interface of the GPS with the DSP. Direct serial interface of the GPS involve tedious processing overhead on the navigation processor. Therefore, a universal asynchronous receiver transmitter (UART) and dual port random axis memory (DPRAM) are created on the FPGA itself. This also reduces the total chip count, resulting in a compact system. The system is designed to give real time processed navigation solutions with an update rate of 100 Hz. All the details of this work are presented.     

基于强跟踪滤波的GPS/INS组合导航系统对准技术研究

针对卡尔曼滤波鲁棒性较差的问题,研究了基于强跟踪滤波方法的GPS/INS对准。建立了GPS/INS组合导航系统对准的误差模型,对机载装备系统进行GPS/INS组合导航系统的对准仿真分析,验证该方案的可行性及强跟踪滤波器的性能。仿真结果表明,采用强跟踪滤波能够根据残差的变化求出渐消因子,能够在机动过程中有效跟踪系统状态量,从而提高对准精度和速度。采用强跟踪滤波的GPS/INS组合导航系统对准技术可以保证对准的快速性及对准精度,对工程应用具有重要的参考价值。     

Analysis of upgraded GPS internal Kalman filter

GPS receivers with provisions for inertial navigation system (INS) aiding are designed with internal Kalman filters that model generic INSs and process the basic GPS pseudorange and deltarange (range-rate) data to produce an output of inertially-smoothed, “GPS-derived” position and velocity. These Kalman filters model only the basic nine INS errors (position, velocity, and tilt) and do not model any INS gyro or accelerometer errors. It was found that a significant performance improvement could be achieved under conditions of degraded GPS satellite availability by augmenting this type of filter with the six INS gyro and accelerometer bias errors. It is, therefore, recommended that serious consideration be given to incorporating these states into the design of the GPS internal Kalman filter     

Relative targeting architectures for captive-carry HIL missilesimulator experiments

Captive-carry electronic warfare (EW) tests evaluate the response of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) missile seekers to an actual environment (test-range) including the presence of electronic attack. This paper describes a relative targeting architecture that displays the test-range results in geodetic coordinates using only the sensors available on board the captive-carry platform (GPS, INS, seekers). To derive the target position in geodetic coordinates, a lever-arm correction process is described that determines the position of each seeker and the corresponding pitch and yaw of the simulator. Combining the positional parameters of the seeker with its targeting variables, the seeker track point is displayed in geodetic coordinates, A track tagging algorithm is presented to identify the true target from the EW disruption using the drift angle from the inertial navigation system (INS), To eliminate the scintillation noise present in the track image, a Kalman filter in sensor coordinates is applied to the targeting variables allowing optimization of the track tagging. Experimental results from a recent EW field test using antiship cruise missile simulators are shown to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach for determining EW effectiveness in near real-time. Targeting accuracy is also quantified by comparing the derived target position with the true Global Positioning System (GPS) test-range position of the ship in the absence of electronic attack