GPS-Challenged Environments: Can Collaborative Navigation Help?

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of the availability and continuity of position, navigation and timing (PNT) information, whose application scope and significance have exploded in the past 10-15 years. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) navigation gap has to be, therefore, filled in, to assure continuous, accurate and reliable PNT even in GNSS-challenged environments. As a viable solution, this paper describes the concept of collaborative navigation, where a group of users, such as emergency crews, dismounted soldiers, or a swarm of robots or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), navigate together in environments where GNSS may be compromised. Urban, indoor and transition environments will be considered in the experimental part of the research performed at the Satellite Positioning and Inertial Navigation (SPIN) Lab at OSU. The two primary systems that we have developed and used in a number of demonstration applications are: the multi-sensor personal navigation (PN) system and the land-based platform, GPSVan; our ongoing research is focused on UAV navigation and application to geospatial data acquisition. Our ultimate research goal is to enable multi-sensory, robust cooperative navigation, including seamless transition between different types of navigation platforms that navigate together, with a special focus on transitional environments. The research trends and experimental results are based predominantly on the OSU experience only, while references to the findings of others are provided.