Integration of Inertial Navigation into Real-Time GIPSY-x (RTGx)

Jason N. Gross, Ryan M. Watson and Victor Sivaneri, Yoaz E. Bar-Sever, William I. Bertiger, Bruce Haines

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	This paper details the integration of an Inertial Navigation System (INS) processing capability within JPL’s RTGx geodetic data analysis and navigation software, and provides a performance analysis with experimental flight data in order to validate the implementation. The RTGx software, when used in conjunction with JPL’s Global Differential GPS System (GDGPS), can be configured for real-time kinematic Precise Point Positioning (K-PPP) for centimeter-level positioning accuracy. Since 2006, RTGx’s predecessor, RTG, has provided operational real-time K-PPP for NASA’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) repeat pass interferometry mission on campaigns all over the world. While RTG’s GPS-only data processing is meeting mission requirements during nominal science operations, its performance naturally degrades during certain flight scenarios, such as abrupt changes in the aircraft attitude or high banking turns, which induce signal loss-of-lock, carrier-phase breaks and/or cycle slips. During these periods, the well-known downsides of K-PPP, including the position solution’s sensitivity to phase breaks and slow convergence after loss-of-lock become apparent, and may impact the instruments critical data take periods. Therefore, tightly-coupled INS has been integrated into RTGx to offer additional robustness. This paper discusses the adopted INS formulation and uses the flight data made available to the community by the National Geodetic Survey’s Kinematic Challenge to offer an experimental performance evaluation. The integration of INS in RTGx is shown to provide solution improvements both in terms of accuracy and precision with respect to a post- processed ambiguity-fixed reference solution. Furthermore, the integration of INS into the RTGx software will enable RTGx to support new application domains.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 28th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2015) September 14 - 18, 2015 Tampa Convention Center Tampa, Florida
Pages:	2560 - 2569
Cite this article:	Gross, Jason N., Watson, Ryan M., Sivaneri, Victor, Bar-Sever, Yoaz E., Bertiger, William I., Haines, Bruce, "Integration of Inertial Navigation into Real-Time GIPSY-x (RTGx)," Proceedings of the 28th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2015), Tampa, Florida, September 2015, pp. 2560-2569.
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