GPS/Pseudolite/INS integration: concept and first tests

This paper discusses the introduction of pseudolites (ground-based GPS-like signal transmitters) into existing integrated GPS/INS systems in order to provide higher availability, integrity, and accuracy in a local area. Even though integrated GPS/INS systems can overcome inherent drawbacks of each component system (line-of-sight requirement for GPS, and INS errors that grow with time), performance is nevertheless degraded under adverse operational circumstances. Some typical examples are when the duration of satellite signal blockage exceeds an INS bridging level, resulting in large accumulated INS errors that cannot be calibrated by GPS. Such a scenario, unfortunately, is a common occurrence for certain kinematic applications. To address such shortcomings, both pseudolite/INS and GPS/pseudolite/INS integration schemes are proposed here. Typically, the former is applicable for indoor positioning where the GPS signal is unavailable for use. The latter would be appropriate for system augmentation when the number and geometry of visible satellites is not sufficient for accurate positioning or attitude determination. In this paper, some technical issues concerned with implementing these two integration schemes are described, including the measurement model, and the appropriate integration filter for INS error estimation and correction through GPS and pseudolite (PL) carrier phase measurements. In addition, the results from the processing of simulated measurements, as well as field experiments, are presented in order to characterize the system performance. As a result, it has been established that the GPS/PL/INS and PL/INS integration schemes would make it possible to ensure centimeter-level positioning accuracy even if the number of GPS signals is insufficient, or completely unavailable. Electronic Publication     

Adaptive GPS/INS integration for relative navigation

Relative navigation based on GPS receivers and inertial measurement units is required in many applications including formation flying, collision avoidance, cooperative positioning, and accident monitoring. Since sensors are mounted on different vehicles which are moving independently, sensor errors are more variable in relative navigation than in single-vehicle navigation due to different vehicle dynamics and signal environments. In order to improve the robustness against sensor error variability in relative navigation, we present an efficient adaptive GPS/INS integration method. In the proposed method, the covariances of GPS and inertial measurements are estimated separately by the innovations of two fundamentally different filters. One is the position-domain carrier-smoothed-code filter and the other is the velocity-aided Kalman filter. By the proposed two-filter adaptive estimation method, the covariance estimation of the two sensors can be isolated effectively since each filter estimates its own measurement noise. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method improves relative navigation accuracy by appropriate noise covariance estimation.     

An integer ambiguity resolution procedure for GPS/pseudolite/INS integration

In order to achieve a precise positioning solution from GPS, the carrier-phase measurements with correctly resolved integer ambiguities must be used. Based on the integration of GPS with pseudolites and Inertial Navigation Systems (INS), this paper proposes an effective procedure for single-frequency carrier-phase integer ambiguity resolution. With the inclusion of pseudolites and INS measurements, the proposed procedure can speed up the ambiguity resolution process and increase the reliability of the resolved ambiguities. In addition, a recently developed ambiguity validation test, and a stochastic modelling scheme (based on-line covariance matrix estimation) are adapted to enhance the quality of ambiguity resolution. The results of simulation studies and field experiments indicate that the proposed procedure indeed improves the performance of single-frequency ambiguity resolution in terms of both reliability and time-to-fix-ambiguity.     

Reliable partial ambiguity resolution for single-frequency GPS/BDS and INS integration

GPS Solutions - Correctly fixing carrier phase integer ambiguities is a prerequisite to achieve high-precision positioning solutions from global navigation satellite system (GNSS). However, for the...     

Design of a low-cost attitude determination GPS/INS integrated navigation system

Due to their complementary features of GPS and INS, the GPS/INS integrated navigation system is increasingly being used for a variety of commercial and military applications. An attitude determination GPS (ADGPS) receiver, with multiple antennas, can be more effectively integrated with a low-cost IMU since the receiver gives not only position and velocity data but also attitude data. This paper proposes a low-cost attitude determination GPS/INS integrated navigation system. The proposed navigation system comprises an ADGPS receiver, a navigation computer unit (NCU), and a low-cost commercial MEMS IMU. The navigation software includes a fault detection and isolation (FDI) algorithm for integrity. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed navigation system, two flight tests have been performed using a small aircraft. The first flight test confirmed the fundamental operation of the proposed navigation system and the effectiveness of the FDI algorithm. The second flight test evaluated the performance of the proposed navigation system and demonstrated the benefit of GPS attitude information in a high dynamic environment. The flight test results show that the proposed ADGPS/INS integrated navigation unit gives reliable navigation performance even when anomalous GPS data is provided and gives better navigation performance than a conventional GPS/INS unit.     

Integrated GPS/INS navigation system with dual-rate Kalman Filter

A dual-rate Kalman Filter (DRKF) has been developed to integrate the time-differenced GPS carrier phases and the GPS pseudoranges with INS measurements. The time-differenced GPS carrier phases, which have low noise and millimeter measurement precision, are integrated with INS measurements using a Kalman Filter with high update rates to improve the performance of the integrated system. Since the time-differenced GPS carrier phases are only relative measurements, when integrated with INS, the position error of the integrated system will accumulate over time. Therefore, the GPS pseudoranges are also incorporated into the integrated system using a Kalman Filter with a low update rate to control the accumulation of system errors. Experimental tests have shown that this design, compared to a conventional design using a single Kalman Filter, reduces the coasting error by two-thirds for a medium coasting time of 30?s, and the position, velocity, and attitude errors by at least one-half for a 45-min field navigation experiment.     

基于GPS/INS姿态测量与定位的航空摄影测量精度分析

OEEPE于1999年启动了名为"集成传感器定向"的实验,研究"是否或在什么条件下GPS/INS直接测量的外方位元素可完全替代空中三角测量"这一焦点问题.对本次OEEPE实验的设立、数据获取与预处理以及"直接传感器定向"与"集成传感器定向"两个阶段的主要内容、输入数据与结果进行了全面系统的介绍,总结了该实验若干关键性的结论,以指导基于GPS/INS系统的航空摄影测量作业生产.     

Robust GPS/BDS/INS tightly coupled integration with atmospheric constraints for long-range kinematic positioning

GPS Solutions - The combination of new global navigation satellite system (GNSS) has brought great benefits to reliable positioning and ambiguity resolution (AR), especially in restricted...     

GPS/MEMS INS integrated system for navigation in urban areas

This paper evaluates the performance of a tightly coupled GPS/INS integrated system based on low cost MEMS IMUs in dense urban areas, and investigates two different methods to improve its performance. The first method used is to derive observations from two different constraint equations reflecting the behavior of a typical land vehicle. The first constraint equation is derived assuming that the vehicle does not slip and always remains in contact with the ground. If these assumptions are true the velocity of the vehicle in the plane perpendicular to the forward direction should be zero. The second constraint equation is derived from the fact that the height does not change much in a short time interval in a land vehicular environment. Thus, when a GPS outage occurs (partial/complete), the integrated system combines the INS and constraints-derived virtual measurements to keep the position and velocity errors bounded. This method is suitable for use in real-time applications. The second method is specifically suitable for a post-mission application and involves the use of Rauch-Tung-Striebel (RTS) smoother. The designed system performance is evaluated using two data sets collected in dense urban areas. The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of different algorithms considered, in controlling the INS error growth, and indicates the potential of MEMS IMUs for use in land vehicle navigation applications.     

Design of minimax robust filtering for an integrated GPS/INS system

The problem of navigation systems with uncertain noise is considered. A minimax robust filtering which can minimize the worst performance under noise uncertainties using the game theory is proposed. This new filter is applied to an integrated GPS/INS navigation system. A high dynamics aircraft trajectory is designed to test the new filter. The results show that minimax robust filtering performs better than standard Kalman filtering when noise parameters of an inertial measurement unit change their statistical properties. Received: 21 October 1997 / Accepted: 26 May 1999     

Adaptive Kalman Filtering for INS/GPS

After reviewing the two main approaches of adaptive Kalman filtering, namely, innovation-based adaptive estimation (IAE) and multiple-model-based adaptive estimation (MMAE), the detailed development of an innovation-based adaptive Kalman filter for an integrated inertial navigation system/global positioning system (INS/GPS) is given. The developed adaptive Kalman filter is based on the maximum likelihood criterion for the proper choice of the filter weight and hence the filter gain factors. Results from two kinematic field tests in which the INS/GPS was compared to highly precise reference data are presented. Results show that the adaptive Kalman filter outperforms the conventional Kalman filter by tuning either the system noise variance–covariance (V–C) matrix `Q' or the update measurement noise V–C matrix `R' or both of them. Received: 14 September 1998 / Accepted: 21 December 1998     

GPS/INS紧耦合系统提高GPS失锁后解算精度的方法

在GPS/INS辅助航空摄影测量作业过程中,如果GPS失锁时间过长将会影响到整个机载POS数据后处理精度,从而影响制图效果。文章旨在研究解决传统基于位置、速度组合的松耦合导航系统在GPS失锁情况下后处理精度不高的问题,提出基于伪距、伪距率的紧耦合导航系统:在保证外符合精度前提下,后处理后的位置内符合精度达到0.05m、航向角内符合精度约为0.005deg,各项指标均满足国外GPS/INS辅助航空摄影测量系统解算精度要求。研究结果可以为解决相关问题提供参考。     

Integrity of an integrated GPS/INS system in the presence of slowly growing errors. Part II: analysis

This is the second of two consecutive papers (Part II) in this journal on the monitoring of the integrity of integrated GPS/INS systems. Part I established that the worst class of error for an integrated system in terms of failure detection performance is that of slowly growing errors (SGEs). It was also concluded that among the integration architectures, the tightly coupled architecture provides the best mechanism to tackle SGEs due to its simpler structure and accessibility to the relevant measurements. In a subsequent comparison of the existing integrity algorithms, the multiple solution separation (MSS) and autonomous integrity monitoring by extrapolation (AIME) methods were selected for further analysis because of their representative characteristics of the current integrity algorithms. This paper carries out a detailed investigation of the capability of the MSS and AIME algorithms to deal with the SGEs, using a realistic simulation platform and limited real data analysis. Results show that although it is possible for the existing algorithms to detect SGEs, the time it takes to detect them varies inversely to the rate of growth of the SGE. A new algorithm is developed to deal with this based on the concept of rate detection. Simulation results show that the new algorithm can detect SGEs earlier than the current algorithms. This is validated by preliminary tests with real data.     

一种GPS/GLONASS/INS数据融合算法

针对卫星导航系统和惯性导航系统(INS)的不同特性,提出了一种GPS/GLONASS/INS数据融合算法。采用差分自适应检测算法、改进码平均相位算法以及位置联合解算方法实现了GPS/GLONASS数据融合,借助于改进的粒子滤波器、INS误差模型建立系统状态方程和观测方程,完成GPS/GLONASS系统速度值和INS系统速度值数据融合,提高组合导航系统精度和可靠性。使用真实数据对数据融合算法性能进行仿真分析,结果表明所设计算法是有效的,能够处理非线性非高斯条件下的滤波估计,提高滤波精度和系统可靠性。     

GPS／INS直接定向精度分析

近年来,GPS／INS融合技术在国内逐渐被应用于航空摄影测量中,利用其直接获得外方位元素,从而减少外业控制点。通过试验,在DMC数码相机同高精度的GPS／INS系统联结下,直接获取了试验区的外方位元素,并对GPS／INS数据直接定向的精度进行分析和总结,得出了一些有益的结论。     

New jump trajectory determination method using low-cost MEMS sensor fusion and augmented observations for GPS/INS integration

Objective information on athletic maneuvers for performance evaluation has become highly desired in sports such as skiing, snowboarding, and mountain biking. Body-mounted devices, incorporating low-cost microelectromechanical, inertial navigation units, and global positioning system (GPS) receivers, to calculate sport-specific key performance variables (KPVs) and provide real-time feedback, are now commercially available. However, algorithms implemented for such purposes still lack accuracy and power efficiency. A new GPS/INS (inertial navigation system) integration algorithm is proposed to determine the trajectory of an athlete executing jumps while skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking etc. KPVs, such as jump horizontal distance, vertical height, and drop, are calculated from the trajectory. A new sensor error compensation scheme is developed using sensor fusion and linear Kalman filters (LKF). The LKF parameters are varied to address the fluctuating dynamics of the athlete during a jump. The extended Kalman filter used for GPS/INS integration has an observation vector augmented with sensor error measurements derived from sensor fusion. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated through experimental field tests. For the determination of jump horizontal distance, height, and drop, the proposed algorithm has errors of 14.3 cm (5.5 %), 1.6 cm (38 %), and 6.7 cm (9.4 %), respectively. Errors in KPVs for a set of jumps were first determined with respect to the true KPVs, and then the errors for all the jumps were averaged to calculate the absolute and percentage errors. The accuracy achieved is deemed to fulfill the expectations of both recreational and professional athletes.     

GPS/INS系统HPR与OPK角元素的剖析与转换

介绍了Heading Pitch Roll(HPR)和Omega Phi Kappa(OPK)两种角元素系统的定义,分析了HPR与OPK之间的区别,给出了相互转换的基本思路,并重点推导了利用GPS/INS系统获取的HPR角度和惯性测量单元(IMU)几何中心坐标计算影像外方位元素的数学公式和各种旋转矩阵的构成。实验结果表明,文中利用HPR角计算外方位元素的理论与方法正确、可行。     

A wavelet-extreme learning machine for low-cost INS/GPS navigation system in high-speed applications

The combined navigation system consisting of both global positioning system (GPS) and inertial navigation system (INS) results in reliable, accurate, and continuous navigation capability when compared to either a GPS or an INS stand-alone system. To improve the overall performance of low-cost micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)-based INS/GPS by considering a high level of stochastic noise on low-cost MEMS-based inertial sensors, a highly complex problems with noisy real data, a high-speed vehicle, and GPS signal outage during our experiments, we suggest two approaches at different steps: (1) improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the inertial sensor measurements and attenuating high-frequency noise using the discrete wavelet transform technique before data fusion while preserving important information like the vehicle motion information and (2) enhancing the positioning accuracy and speed by an extreme learning machine (ELM) which has the characteristics of quick learning speed and impressive generalization performance. We present a single-hidden layer feedforward neural network which is employed to optimize the estimation accuracy and speed by minimizing the error, especially in the high-speed vehicle and real-time implementation applications. To validate the performance of our proposed method, the results are compared with an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and an extended Kalman filter (EKF) method. The achieved accuracies are discussed. The results suggest a promising and superior prospect for ELM in the field of positioning for low-cost MEMS-based inertial sensors in the absence of GPS signal, as it outperforms ANFIS and EKF by approximately 50 and 70%, respectively.