Inertially Aided GPS Based Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS) for General Aviation Aircraft

Roger C. Hayward, Demoz Gebre-Egziabher, Matt Schwall, John Wilson,J. David Powell

Abstract:	GPS was used with ultra-short baselines (2-3 car-rier wavelengths) in a triple antenna configuration to obtain attitude for General Aviation (GA) aircraft. Through algorithm selection and error source calibration, accuracies of 0.1°, 0.15° and 0.2° rms were obtained for pitch roll and yaw respectively. The accuracy and robust-ness of the system was enhanced by combining the ultra short-baseline GPS attitude solution with an attitude solu-tion derived using inexpensive automotive grade rate gyros. The solid state gyros allow coasting through tem-porary GPS outages lasting 2 minutes with attitude errors less than 6 degrees. The combined GPS-inertial system has a 20Hz output sufficient to drive glass cockpit type displays. A prototype system was built and flight tested in a Beechcraft Queen Air. The system installed and flight tested in the Queen Air compares favorably to the perfor-mance of the existing vacuum driven instruments. It is cur-rently being used in ongoing research at Stanford with futuristic high resolution displays[1].
Published in:	Proceedings of the 10th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1997) September 16 - 19, 1997 Kansas City, MO
Pages:	289 - 298
Cite this article:	Hayward, Roger C., Gebre-Egziabher, Demoz, Schwall, Matt, Wilson, John, Powell, J. David, "Inertially Aided GPS Based Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS) for General Aviation Aircraft," Proceedings of the 10th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1997), Kansas City, MO, September 1997, pp. 289-298.
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