An Accurate Land-Vehicle MEMS IMU/GPS Navigation System Using 3D Auxiliary Velocity Updates

Xiaoji Niu, Sameh Nassar, Naser El-Sheimy

Peer Reviewed

Abstract: In the last decade, the Land-Vehicle Navigation (LVN) market has grown rapidly. For most LVN systems, GPS is used for positioning. However, GPS has poor accuracy in urban areas due to signal blockages. Therefore, the LVN market has targeted the integration of other sensors with GPS. In this case, sensors’ cost and size are major issues. Recent advances in MEMS inertial sensors made it possible to develop low-cost and compact IMUs. However, MEMS provide poor accuracy when used without updates (e.g., during GPS outages). In such periods, other updates are required for better performance. Vehicle full-stops, i.e., Zero-Velocity-Updates (ZUPTs), are usually applied for this purpose. However, this is not practical especially when GPS blockages are frequent. In this paper, 3D Auxiliary Velocity Updates (AVUs) are used, namely, non-holonomic constraints and odometer-derived velocity. Using kinematic MEMS/GPS data with several GPS signal blockages, the results showed a significant accuracy improvement after applying AVUs.
Published in: NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 54, Number 3
Pages: 177 - 188
Cite this article: Niu, Xiaoji, Nassar, Sameh, El-Sheimy, Naser, "An Accurate Land-Vehicle MEMS IMU/GPS Navigation System Using 3D Auxiliary Velocity Updates", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 54, No. 3, Fall 2007, pp. 177-188.
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