Velocity/Position Integration Formula (II): Application to Inertial Navigation Computation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rigorous approach to account for navigation frame rotation in inertial navigation systems, proposing new velocity/position integration formulae that improve accuracy especially for high-speed aircraft.

Contribution

It presents a novel set of velocity/position integration formulae that explicitly incorporate frame rotation, enhancing inertial navigation accuracy and understanding.

Findings

Derived algorithms outperform existing methods in high-speed scenarios.

Analytical and numerical comparisons demonstrate improved accuracy.

Potential benefits include better navigation precision for ultra-high-speed aircraft.

Abstract

Inertial navigation applications are usually referenced to a rotating frame. Consideration of the navigation reference frame rotation in the inertial navigation algorithm design is an important but so far less seriously treated issue, especially for ultra-high-speed flying aircraft or the future ultra-precision navigation system of several meters per hour. This paper proposes a rigorous approach to tackle the issue of navigation frame rotation in velocity/position computation by use of the newly-devised velocity/position integration formulae in the Part I companion paper. The two integration formulae set a well-founded cornerstone for the velocity/position algorithms design that makes the comprehension of the inertial navigation computation principle more accessible to practitioners, and different approximations to the integrals involved will give birth to various velocity/position update algorithms. Two-sample velocity and position algorithms are derived to exemplify the design process. In the context of level-flight airplane examples, the derived algorithm is analytically and numerically compared to the typical algorithms existing in the literature. The results throw light on the problems in existing algorithms and the potential benefits of the derived algorithm.