Future Integrated Navigation Guidance System

Simon Moore, Graeme Myers and Richard Hunt

Abstract:	The UK Defence Evaluation Research Agency (DERA)has been looking at techniques for optimising navigation performance in the context of multiple sensors for some time. In a potentially hostile environment the reliance of the system on individual sensors can compromise the whole system solution and DERA therefore required a fault tolerant system that would not only calibrate sensor errors to achieve the optimal solution, but also tolerate their absence. The Raytheon Future Integrated Navigation Guidance (FING) system has been developed in consultation with DERA Bedford and Dr. M. Brown. This solution is designed to optimally blend GPS, INS, Map Referenced Navigation (MRN), Edge Detection Navigation (EDN), barometric altimeter and radar altimeter. The system employs a number of PowerPC processor cards implementing an array of Kalman Filters, with the final solution arbitration utilising a multi-hypothesis recovery mechanism. An important aspect of the failure recovery mechanism is the maintenance of multiple navigation solutions. Individual filters are allowed to succeed or fail according to the quality of the measurements and their own history. The filter failure identification and failure recovery mechanism consists of residual monitoring and the maintenance of sensor-failure likelihood ratio tests. Solutions are then initiated, maintained, or deleted according to the filter-failure likelihood ratio tests. The sensors presented to the system vary widely in the form of the measurement. Measurements such as GPS and INS are well understood and readily modelled. Sensors such as the radar altimeter and the MRN system present unique problems in their own right. The system is designed to maximise the benefits of coupling radar altimeter with barometric data, and from calibrating secondary sensors such as the MRN. Once the system has undergone successful trials within DERA's own complex simulation environment based on the Real Time All Vehicle Simulator (RTAVS) the equipment will undergo flight trials.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2001 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 22 - 24, 2001 Westin Long Beach Hotel Long Beach, CA
Pages:	447 - 457
Cite this article:	Moore, Simon, Myers, Graeme, Hunt, Richard, "Future Integrated Navigation Guidance System," Proceedings of the 2001 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Long Beach, CA, January 2001, pp. 447-457.
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