Carrier Differential GPS for Takeoff to Landing of an Autonomous Aircraft

Paul Montgomery and Brad Parkinson

Abstract:	Using the carrier phase of the GPS signal, one is able to resolve relative displacements in space to the cen- timeter level. This paper describes the use of carrier differential techniques to determine the position, ve- locity, attitude and angular velocity of an autonomous aircraft in real time. The full state GPS estimates are used in linear quadratic (LQ) feedback control to auto- mate the flight of the aircraft from takeoff thru landing. We present Ilight data from recent flight tests. In ad- dition to GPS, the aircraft is instrumented with a vari- ety of inexpensive conventional sensors including alpha and beta vanes, and a dynamic pressure sensor (pitot). These provide an independent measurement of the air- craft velocity relative to the air. This independent mea- surement enables estimation of the the absolute wind vector, which is used in waypoint tracking.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1996 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 22 - 24, 1996 Loews Santa Monica Hotel Santa Monica, CA
Pages:	167 - 176
Cite this article:	Montgomery, Paul, Parkinson, Brad, "Carrier Differential GPS for Takeoff to Landing of an Autonomous Aircraft," Proceedings of the 1996 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Santa Monica, CA, January 1996, pp. 167-176.
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