Velocity-Aided Navigation in GNSS-Denied Environments

Area of Science:

• Navigation Systems Engineering
• Geomatics Engineering
• Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Background:

• Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers are primary navigation tools but are not autonomous.
• Strapdown Inertial Navigation Systems (SINS) are autonomous but suffer from significant, time-increasing errors.
• Current SINS accuracy improvements rely on expensive hardware or integration with dissimilar systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an alternative Velocity-Aided Navigation (VAN) method for determining position (latitude, longitude, altitude).
• To provide a navigation solution independent of GNSS signals.
• To develop a method that avoids the double integration of accelerometer data inherent in SINS.

Main Methods:

• Developed a novel Velocity-Aided Navigation (VAN) approach utilizing an inertial measurement unit (IMU).
• Derived analytical expressions to quantify the errors associated with the proposed VAN method.
• Conducted experimental testing to validate calculation results and compare performance against existing systems.

Main Results:

• The proposed VAN method demonstrated significantly smaller errors compared to autonomous SINS.
• Error analysis confirmed the analytical derivations for the new navigation approach.
• Experimental results showed VAN method's accuracy is comparable to SINS integrated with GNSS via Kalman filtering.

Conclusions:

• The VAN method provides a viable autonomous navigation solution, especially when GNSS is unavailable.
• This approach can serve as a GNSS alternative for SINS integration or as a standalone backup navigation system.
• The VAN method offers a promising alternative for accurate and reliable positioning in diverse operational environments.