PRECISION ANGLE MEASUREMENT IN ELECTROMAGNETIC NAVIGATION SYSTEMS

H. Warren Cooper

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	A NAVIGATION SYSTEM may be divided into sensors, information processing, and output couplers, including either links to autopilots or displays for a human pilot. This paper is addressed to the realization of reliable accuracy in short baseline angle measuring, using electromagnet’ic sensors, and considers the problems of propagation, of collect,ion of the electromagnetic energy, and, particularly, of encoding the angle information on the energy in such a fashion that it can be extracted reliably and accurately. Fig. 1 is a block diagram typical of an automated aircraft navigation system. The airborne portion of the system consists of sensors for determining position and attitude, as well as other physical quantities such as temperature and acceleration, connected to some information processing system. The output of the information processing system in turn is coupled to an output coupler or autopilot to provide a mechanical control to cause a reaction on the vehicle in which the system is installed. This paper is addressed to the problems of an electromagnetic position or attitude sensor particularly to those characteristic of the final approach and landing portion of an aircraft flight. The delineation between the sensor itself and the information processing of the system is an arbitrary one. In addition to the vehicle-borne portion of the system, any nondistance measuring system requires that the ground portion radiate a signal in which some characteristic of the signal is a function of direction to the ground station.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 14, Number 3
Pages:	295 - 307
Cite this article:	Cooper, H. Warren, "PRECISION ANGLE MEASUREMENT IN ELECTROMAGNETIC NAVIGATION SYSTEMS", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 14, No. 3, Fall 1967, pp. 295-307.
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