Navigation system
A navigation system comprising: an inertial navigation system arranged to output a first position estimate; a terrain based navigation unit arranged to output a second position estimate; a stored gravity map arranged to receive a position and to output gravity information for that position; and an iterative algorithm unit arranged to determine an INS error state in each iteration; wherein in each iteration the iterative algorithm unit is arranged to: receive the first position estimate and the second position estimate; determine a gravity corrected position estimate based on the first position estimate, the INS error state and the gravity information; and update the INS error state for the next iteration based on the INS error state, the gravity corrected position estimate and the second position estimate.
1. A navigation system comprising:
an inertial navigation system (INS) arranged to output a first position estimate comprising three dimensional coordinates;
a terrain based navigation unit arranged to output a second position estimate comprising three dimensional coordinates;
a stored gravity map arranged to output gravity information for a received position; and
an iterative algorithm unit arranged to determine an INS error state in each iteration;
wherein in each iteration the iterative algorithm unit is arranged to:
receive the first position estimate and the second position estimate;
determine a gravity corrected position estimate based on the first position estimate, the INS error state and the gravity information;
weight the different position estimates according to their estimated uncertainties, placing more weight on position estimates that have lower uncertainty; and
update the INS error state for the next iteration based on the INS error state, the weighted gravity corrected position estimate and the weighted second position estimate.
2. A navigation system according to claim 1 , wherein the iterative algorithm comprises a Kalman filter.
3. A navigation system according to claim 1 , wherein the terrain based navigation unit is arranged to determine the second position estimate based on a correlation between measured terrain profile data and stored terrain profile data in a terrain map.
4. A navigation system according to claim 3 , wherein the terrain based navigation unit comprises a radar altimeter or laser altimeter arranged to measure the terrain profile data.
5. A navigation system according to claim 1 , wherein the gravity information comprises three-dimensional gravity field strength/gradient data, and/or a second or a third order tensor of the gravity field strength/gradient.
6. A navigation system according to claim 1 , wherein the position received by the stored gravity map is the first position estimate as corrected by the INS error state, the first position estimate or the second position estimate.
7. A navigation system according to claim 1 , wherein in each iteration the iterative algorithm unit is further arranged to output an error corrected position estimate based on the INS error state for the next iteration and the first position estimate.
8. A vehicle comprising the navigation system according to claim 1 .
9. An iterative method of determining an INS error state, each iteration of the method comprising:
receiving a first position estimate comprising three dimensional coordinates from an inertial navigation system (INS) and a second position estimate comprising three dimensional coordinates from a terrain based navigation unit;
determining gravity information for a received position from a stored gravity map;
determining a gravity corrected position estimate based on the first position estimate, the INS error state and the gravity information;
weighting the different position estimates according to their estimated uncertainties, placing more weight on position estimates that have lower uncertainty; and
updating the INS error state for the next iteration based on the INS error state, the weighted gravity corrected position estimate and the weighted second position estimate.
10. An iterative method according to claim 9 , wherein the INS error state is updated using a Kalman filter.
11. An iterative method according to claim 9 , wherein the second position estimate is determined based on a correlation between measured terrain profile data and stored terrain profile data in a terrain map.
12. An iterative method according to claim 9 , wherein the gravity information from the stored gravity map is determined based on the first position estimate as corrected by the INS error state, the first position estimate or the second position estimate.
13. The iterative method according to claim 9 , wherein each iteration of the iterative method further comprises outputting an error corrected position estimate based on the INS error state for the next iteration and the first position estimate.
14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that are executable by a processor to perform a method, the method comprising:
receiving a first position estimate comprising three dimensional coordinates from an inertial navigation system and a second position estimate comprising three dimensional coordinates from a terrain based navigation unit;
determining gravity information for a received position from a stored gravity map;
determining a gravity corrected position estimate based on the first position estimate, the INS error state and the gravity information; and
weight the different position estimates according to their estimated uncertainties, placing more weight on position estimates that have lower uncertainty; and
updating the INS error state for the next iteration based on the INS error state, the weighted gravity corrected position estimate and the weighted second position estimate.