Rapid Transfer Alignment Using Integrated Navigation System as Reference

Abstract

Traditional transfer alignment must use a pure Inertial Navigation System (INS) as the reference, because using the integrated navigation system as the reference would disrupt the transfer alignment process and lead to the divergence of the fine alignment filter. But there are some cases require the cooperation between the master INS and slave INS for long time duration, such as mapping. To guarantee the accuracy of the master INS, integrated navigation feedback is needed. So, transfer alignment technique using the integrated navigation system as the reference is required. Taking the error of master INS into account, a transfer alignment attitude error in the body frame was defined, which makes the transfer alignment attitude error free from the impact of integrated navigation feedback corrections. Then, its error equations were developed and a Kalman filter was designed based on it. Finally, a transfer alignment simulation using a GPS/INS integrated navigation system as reference was performed to validate the proposed scheme.