Distance from Current Position to a Known Rhumb Line Track

David Y. Hsu

Abstract:	In naval applications, it is of interest to determine how much the current position of a ship deviates from a desired constant heading course (i.e., the rhumb line joining given beginning and destination points) due to the effects of wind and ocean current. This article outlines the procedures to solve for the shortest distance from n given point to a known rhumb line analytically and also shows an algorithm to determine an approximation to the exact solution under two assumptions: 1. the earth is a perfect sphere, 2. the current position does not deviate too much from the intended rhumb line course. A Bridge Display Unit (BDU) has been designed at Litton Guidance and Control Systems to provide high accuracy position and navigation information available from the Litton AN/WSN-5 inertial navigation set. The above analysis was used to calculate distance between a known rhumb line track and current position for display purpose.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1986) June 24 - 26, 1986 Seattle, Washington
Pages:	166 - 171
Cite this article:	Hsu, David Y., "Distance from Current Position to a Known Rhumb Line Track," Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1986), Seattle, Washington, June 1986, pp. 166-171.
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