Abstract
Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) require highly reliable navigation information. Generally, navigation systems with the inertial navigation system (INS) and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) have been widely used. However, the GNSS is vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. The terrain referenced navigation (TRN) technique can be used to solve this problem. In this study, to obtain reliable navigation information even if a GNSS is not available or the degree of terrain roughness is not determined, we propose a federated filter based INS/GNSS/TRN integrated navigation system. We also introduce a TRN system that combines batch processing and an auxiliary particle filter to ensure stable flight of UAVs even in a long-term GNSS-denied environment. As an altimeter sensor for the TRN system, an interferometric radar altimeter (IRA) is used to obtain reliable navigation accuracy in high altitude flight. In addition, a parallel computing technique with general purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is applied to process a high resolution terrain database and a nonlinear filter in real-time on board. Finally, the performance of the proposed system is verified through software-in-the-loop (SIL) tests and captive flight tests in a GNSS unavailable environment.
Highlights
Much research has been conducted on surveillance and reconnaissance technologies for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
Before the proposed advanced precision terrain aided navigation system (AP-TAN) is applied to UAVs, we investigated the feasibility of the navigation performance on a real aircraft platform
To secure UAV survivability and reliability in an environment where a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is unavailable for a long time, we developed an optimal combination terrain referenced navigation (TRN) algorithm consisting of an acquisition mode based on batch processing and a tracking mode based on an auxiliary particle filter (APF)
Summary
Much research has been conducted on surveillance and reconnaissance technologies for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The GNSS cannot operate independently as it provides information with outside help and is vulnerable to hostile jamming and spoofing To overcome such weaknesses, the vision-based navigation technique is commonly used for UAVs [3,4,5], but a problem with the camera adapting to the changing conditions of a real flight is not completely solved yet, so vision-based navigation is mainly used in drone systems that fly at low altitude for a relatively short time [6] and autonomous driving vehicles [7]. As another technique that can resolve the problems of GNSS, the terrain referenced navigation (TRN) can be used
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
