Effect of Vertical Deflections and Ocean Currents on a Maneuvering Ship

Vertical deflections and ocean currents introduce errors into ship's inertial navigation systems (SINS). In the absence of exact knowledge, these quantities may be treated as distance-dependent stationary random processes. However, these distance-dependent random processes enter SINS as time-dependent error sources. The autocorrelation functions of these time functions depend on the manner in which the ship maneuvers. An equation relating the time-dependent autocorrelation function to the distance-dependent autocorrelation function is derived. The time-dependent autocorrelation function is obtained for four different situations. The first two examples are ships steaming at constant heading and constant, but not necessarily known, velocity. The third example involves a ship tracking back and forth over the same path. The last example describes a ship that steams at a constant speed but changes heading in a random manner.