METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR USING POSITION/ATTITUDE INFORMATION TO ENHANCE A VEHICLE GUIDANCE SYSTEM

• US 20090312948A1
• Filed: 06/17/2008
• Published: 12/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AGCO Corporation
• Original Assignee: AGCO Corporation
• Inventors: Matthews, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 8,626,441 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/214
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/30 Map- or contour-matching
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0278 using satellite positioning signals, e.g. GPS

Abstract

An enhanced vehicle guidance system comprising a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver and a data processor with a memory component and a computing device. The method of enhancing a vehicle'"'"'s guidance system may comprise calculating the altitude, latitude, and longitude of a GNSS receiver for each of a plurality of positions; calculating the incline angle between adjacent points; and using the calculated incline angles to infer the attitude of the vehicle at any of the plurality of positions. The attitude may be used to calculated an inertial correction factor to compensate for GNSS position inaccuracies induced as a result of the vehicle rolling and pitching on uneven terrain. The altitude, latitude, longitude, and attitude of the plurality of positions may be stored in the memory such that the system may look-up the attitude for a given position without recalculating the attitude and without using an inertial sensor.

Claims

1. A method of enhancing a vehicle'"'"'s guidance system having a position-determining component, the method comprising:

calculating a first position of an elevated portion of the vehicle;

calculating a second position of the elevated portion of the vehicle after it has moved;

calculating an incline angle between the first position and the second position; and

using the incline angle to infer vehicle attitude without using an angle-measuring device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising calculating a ground position of the vehicle based on the attitude of the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

calculating the altitude, latitude, and longitude of the position-determining component for each of a plurality of position points;

calculating the incline angle between adjacent position points; and

using the incline angle to infer the attitude of the vehicle at any of the plurality of position points.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the altitude, latitude, and longitude of the plurality of positions are plotted to create a terrain profile.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising recording the altitude, latitude, longitude, and attitude for each of the plurality of positions and accessing this data upon subsequent visits to these positions such that the system may look-up the stored attitude for a given position without recalculating or measuring the attitude.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising calculating or approximating attitude and position information of an intermediate position between the plurality of positions.

7. The method of claim 3, further comprising calculating an inertial correction factor based on the attitude.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising solving for the ground position by adding the inertial correction factor to a corresponding coordinate from the position-determining component.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising recording the inertial correction factor for each of the plurality of position points and accessing the corresponding inertial correction factor upon subsequent visits to any of the plurality of recorded positions.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising recording the ground position for each of the plurality of position points and accessing the corresponding ground position upon subsequent visits to these positions.

11. The method of claims 5, 9, or 10, further comprising preemptively adjusting vehicle settings based on the recorded data for an upcoming position.

12. A method of enhancing a guidance system of a vehicle having a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver, the method comprising:

obtaining latitude, longitude, and attitude data for a plurality of positions in an area of land;

calculating an inertial correction factor for each of the plurality of positions based on the attitude data for each of the plurality of positions; and

adjusting the obtained latitude and longitude based on the corresponding calculated inertial correction factor to determine a ground position coordinate for each of the plurality of positions.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising obtaining altitude values for the plurality of positions in the area of land, wherein the attitude data for the plurality of positions in the area of land is inferred using only the latitude, longitude, and altitude of the plurality of positions.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the attitude data is obtained by an inertial sensor.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising storing the latitude, longitude, and attitude data for the plurality of positions in the area of land in a memory component.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising preemptively adjusting vehicle settings based on the recorded data for an upcoming position.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising accessing the latitude, longitude, and attitude data from the memory component upon subsequent visits to any of the plurality of positions such that the guidance system may look-up the stored attitude for one of the plurality of positions without recalculating or measuring the attitude.

18. A method of enhancing a guidance system of a vehicle having a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver, a computing device, and a memory component, the method comprising:

obtaining latitude, longitude, and altitude from a GNSS receiver for a plurality of GNSS receiver position points in an area of land;

calculating the incline angles between adjacent GNSS receiver position points using latitude, longitude, and altitude;

inferring attitude information of the vehicle at any of the plurality of GNSS receiver position points based on the calculated incline angles;

storing the latitude, longitude, and attitude data for the plurality of position points in the memory component;

calculating an inertial correction factor for each of the plurality of position points based on the attitude data for each of the plurality of position points; and

adding the inertial correction factors to their corresponding GNSS positions to determine a corrected vehicle position coordinate for each of the plurality of GNSS receiver position points.