Adaptive integration techniques for low-cost integrated navigation systems

导航技术正在以惊人的速度发展，特别是在民用社区，车辆和个人导航器等设备在我们的日常生活中变得司空见惯。目前的大多数导航系统主要依靠全球定位系统“GPS”来估计位置和速度。但随着对在恶劣GPS环境下工作的解决方案的需求不断增长，例如在市中心、茂密的树冠下或在存在干扰的情况下，导航解决方案暂时不可用的GPS信号可用性正在达到极限。为了帮助提供连续导航解决方案，惯性导航系统(INS)通常与GPS集成。申请人和其他研究人员参与了GPS/INS组合系统的开发，用于许多导航应用。不幸的是，这些集成系统的重点大多是高精度应用(需要高成本的惯性系统)，原因有几个：(A)导航或战术级惯性传感器的高成本(数千美元)，(B)这些高质量惯性单元的相对较大的尺寸，(C)政府的限制/法规。微型机电系统(MEMS)惯性传感器的引入有助于将这些因素降至最低。MEMS价格低廉，它们足够小，可以嵌入到手持GPS接收器中，政府的限制最小，它们通常与单点定位GPS(SGPS)一起使用，不需要精确更新。对于民用应用，MEMS惯性传感器与SGPS相结合是在恶劣的GPS环境中导航的一种有效而实用的解决方案。但在成本、规模和监管方面的收益是以导航精度为代价的。MEMS的误差特性比其更高等级的同类产品大得多，这意味着集成策略对这些传感器的成功和精度至关重要。这项拟议的研究将解决当前集成方案中的几个问题，包括MEMS INS/SGPS集成系统的调谐、温度和剩余未对准误差。

Navigation technologies are expanding at a phenomenal rate, especially within the civil community, with devices such as vehicle and personal navigators becoming commonplace within our everyday lives. Most current navigation systems rely primarily on the Global Positioning System "GPS" for position and velocity estimates. But with the growing demand for solutions that works in harsh GPS environments, such as in downtown areas, under heavily treed canopies, or in the presence of jamming, the limits of GPS signal availability are being reached where the navigation solution becomes temporarily unavailable. To help provide a continuous navigation solution, Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) have typically been integrated with GPS. The applicant, and others research, have been involved with the development of integrated GPS/INS systems for many navigation application. Unfortunately most of the focus of these integrated systems has been for high precision applications (requiring high cost inertial systems) due to several factors: (a) The high cost of navigational or tactical grade inertial sensors (thousands of dollars), (b) The relatively large size of these high quality inertial units, (c) Government restrictions/regulations. The introduction of micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS) inertial sensors has helped minimize these factors. MEMS are inexpensive, they are small enough to be embedded within a handheld GPS receiver, the government restrictions are minimal and they are commonly used with single point positioning GPS (SGPS) without the need for precise updates. For civil applications, MEMS inertial sensors combined with SGPS represent an efficient and practical solution for navigating in harsh GPS environments. But the gains in cost, size and regulations come with a price in terms of navigation accuracy. MEMS have much larger error characteristics than their higher grade counterparts meaning that the integration strategy is paramount to the success and accuracy of these sensors. The proposed research will address several issues with the current integration scheme including tuning, temperature and residual misalignment errors for integrated MEMS INS/SGPS systems.