High availability and robustness precise GNSS positioning systems for autonomous vehicle navigation in challenging environments

自动驾驶汽车等自动驾驶汽车的发展取得了重大进展，预计将对行业、社会和我们的生活产生重大影响。目前，各大汽车制造商都开发了一款自动驾驶汽车，并在街道上进行了测试。由于许多高速公路法规仍有待制定，一款完全自动驾驶的汽车最早可能在2020年投放市场。 无人机使用各种传感器、控制硬件和软件来管理驾驶功能的方方面面，并需要非常精确的位置和方向信息，以便在没有人类输入的情况下控制和导航车辆。GNSS是自动车辆传感器套件中的此类传感器之一。尽管汽车制造商已将GNSS作为不可或缺的部件，但目前的精密GNSS技术在满足无人机的严格要求方面面临着几个障碍。虽然目前正在测试的自动驾驶汽车在很大程度上依赖于天气相关的传感器，这些传感器在恶劣的天气和路况(例如车道标志和路标被雨、雪或雾等覆盖或遮挡)中表现不佳，但它们的成功仅限于良好的天气和路况。作为一种与天气无关的传感器，也是唯一能够输出对其他车载传感器至关重要的绝对时间信息的传感器，如果能够在具有挑战性的环境中证明其可用性和可靠性，精密GNSS可以在恶劣的天气和道路条件下发挥关键作用。 这项研究的主要目标是研究和开发高可用性和健壮性的精密GNSS定位方法和算法，以满足具有挑战性的环境中自主车辆导航的需要。这项拟议研究的结果将包括新的程序、方法和算法，以实现高可用性和稳健性的全球导航卫星系统精确定位，并帮助回答诸如“我可以在任何需要的时候获得精确的全球导航卫星系统定位吗？”、“在丢失全球导航卫星系统改正数据的情况下，我还能获得精确的全球导航卫星系统定位吗？”、“我可以相信来自全球导航卫星系统的定位解决方案吗？”还将开发一个原型系统，用于性能分析和工业演示。新的流程、方法和算法预计将推动精密GNSS技术的发展，并提高无人机上其他导航传感器的性能，用于障碍物检测和环境传感，特别是在恶劣天气条件下。

Significant progress has been made in the development of Autonomous Vehicles (AV) such as self-driving cars which are expected to greatly impact the industry, society and our lives. Currently all major automakers have developed a self-driving car and tested it on streets. A fully autonomous vehicle, with many highway regulations still to be developed, could be available to market as early as 2020. AV use various sensors, control hardware and software to manage all aspects of the driving function and require very precise position and orientation information in order to control and navigate the vehicle without input from humans. GNSS is one of such sensors in the automated vehicle sensor suite. Although automakers have adopted GNSS as an indispensable component, current precision GNSS techniques face several obstacles to meet AV's stringent requirements. While self-driving cars currently being tested rely much on weather-dependent sensors which perform poorly in adverse weather and road conditions (e.g. lane markers and road signs are covered or obscured by rain, snow, or fog etc.), their success is limited to only good weather and road conditions. As a weather-independent sensor and also the only sensor that outputs absolute time information critical to other onboard sensors, precision GNSS could play a key role in bad weather and road conditions if it can prove its availability and reliability in challenging environments. The major objective of this proposed research is to investigate and develop high availability and robustness precise GNSS positioning methods and algorithms to meet the need of autonomous vehicle navigation in challenging environments. The outcome of this proposed research will consist of new processes, methods and algorithms to enable high availability and robustness precise GNSS positioning and help answer questions such as “can I have precise GNSS positioning whenever I need?”, “can I still have precise GNSS positioning available during loss of GNSS correction data?”, “can I trust the positioning solutions from GNSS?”. A prototype system will also be developed for performance analysis and industrial demonstration. The new processes, methods and algorithms are expected to advance precision GNSS technologies and also enhance the performance of other navigation sensors onboard AV for obstacle detection and environment sensing, particularly in tough weather conditions.