Advances in the State of the Art for Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) Inertial Sensors and Navigation Systems

Ronald F. Cox and Shou Y. Wei

Abstract:	Inertial navigation reference units are often thought of as sim- ply a navigation device which must be augmented by another device to damp the Schuler oscillation and characteristic long term drift. Expansion of the roles for autonomous vehicles, however, demonstrate a need for increasingly sophisticated in- ertial equipment for this application. Since total avionics weight, size and power are critical for UAVs, the desire is to use a single unit to meet all inertial needs. This includes navi- gation and sensor stabilization. Inertial systems have traditionally represented a significant power load, required forced air cooling, been heavy and a source of acoustic and structure-borne noise. This paper pres- ents an overview of an inertial system now in production at the Guidance and Control Systems Division of Litton Systems, Inc., which is small, low power, lightweight, silent, and does not require cooling. It is uniquely suited for extremely low noise pointing and stabilization applications in small vehicles. Data are presented that show long term performance as well as short term attitude, attitude rate, position, and velocity refer- ence data. Attitude, velocity and body axis rate data are required for stabilization of such devices as SAR, IR, optical sensors, and communication antennas. The relationship between the characteristics of these sensors and inertial type errors is explored. This analysis shows that it is not sufficient to specify the inertial system only in terms of its navigation CEP. The specification of the inertial unit must also be based on the needs of the sensor payload and include such consider- ations as noise content, phase, and bandwidth of the stabiliza- tion reference.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1994) June 6 - 8, 1994 Antlers Doubletree Hotel Colorado Springs, CO
Pages:	449 - 455
Cite this article:	Cox, Ronald F., Wei, Shou Y., "Advances in the State of the Art for Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) Inertial Sensors and Navigation Systems," Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1994), Colorado Springs, CO, June 1994, pp. 449-455.
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