Flight Test of a GPS-Aided Low-Cost Inertial Navigation System Programmed in Ada

James E. Birr, Thomas J. Frey, Michael D. Mobley, Kevin J. Spalding

Abstract:	The United States Department of Defense has mandated that programming for defense applications be done in AdaIll. This has been difficult to date for embedded critical real-time applications partly due to inefficiencies in current Ada environments. Navigation systems impose strict real-time constraints requiring prompt servicing of external events along with an efficient multitasking environment. McDonnell Douglas Missile Systems Company (MDMSC) has developed and flight tested a prototype GPS-aided low-cost inertial navigation system using Ada. The software includes packages for tracking attitude, computing position and velocity, and computing navigation corrections from GPS measurements using a Kalman filter. The host processor also performs scoring and data acquisition functions. Extended kernel operating system features were used to overcome deficiencies in the standard ADA environment. The Ada configuration was flight tested on a Beechcraft King Air aircraft, and results compared to those obtained from a preexisting non-Ada navigation’ system. These results demonstrated that real-time Ada with extended kernel features can be used in a critical real-time navigation system.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 3rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1990) September 19 - 21, 1990 The Broadmoor Hotel Colorado Spring, CO
Pages:	697 - 703
Cite this article:	Birr, James E., Frey, Thomas J., Mobley, Michael D., Spalding, Kevin J., "Flight Test of a GPS-Aided Low-Cost Inertial Navigation System Programmed in Ada," Proceedings of the 3rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1990), Colorado Spring, CO, September 1990, pp. 697-703.
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