Airborne Integrated Vision/Inertial Navigation System for Landing on Aircraft Carrier

Abstract

It is a very difficult task to land on aircraft carrier, because of limits of the carrier runway during rough sea. In this article, a new algorithm of aircraft carrier landing is proposed utilizing airborne infrared camera/inertial integrated system, which can provide the relative positions and orientation of the aircraft with respect to the carrier so as to help aircrafts semi-auto or auto landing. The mathematic relationship between guidance parameters and imaging information was modeled, and then the relative position and attitude information between the carrier and the aircraft were estimated through Newton iteration method. From that information, the pitching, rolling and heave movement of the carrier were estimated and compensated, so the touchdown point could be predicted and provided to the pilot so as to control aircraft landing. On the ground of the theoretic research, the field verification tests were carried out, which adopted the minification scheme to simulate the process of aircraft carrier landing. In the experiments, the runway simulator simulated the motion of the carrier runway and the land vehicle was used as the aircraft. The results verify the landing guidance system scheme is feasible and effective, and lay the technical foundation for the flight test, improving its safety.