NAVIGATION EQUIPMENT

• US 20110071755A1
• Filed: 07/07/2008
• Published: 03/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Inventors: Fujii, Masatoshi, Kato, Hiroaki, Ouchi, Sadami, Mori, Atsushi, Ishigami, Tadatomi, Nita, Takeshi, Kan, Keika
• Granted Patent: US 7,987,047 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/208
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/165 combined with non-inertial navigation instruments
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/30 Map- or contour-matching
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/22 Multipath-related issues
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/49 whereby the further system is an inertial position system, e.g. loosely-coupled

Abstract

A navigation equipment includes a user position observing unit 15 for calculating the position of the navigation equipment by using the pseudo range and position of each GPS satellite, and a pseudo range error, a user velocity and heading observing unit 16 for calculating the velocity of the navigation equipment from a measured range rate, the position of each GPS satellite, and the position of the navigation equipment, and a user heading searching unit 17 for, when a multipath error is smaller than a specified value, searching for, as the heading of the navigation equipment, a heading whose range rate, which is calculated from a relative movement between the navigation equipment when the navigation equipment changes its heading within a predetermined angle range and a GPS satellite, matches the measured range rate.

Claims

1. Navigation equipment comprising:

a radio wave receiving unit for receiving radio waves emitted from a plurality of GPS satellites;

a signal processing unit for identifying the GPS satellites which are emission sources of the radio waves received by said radio wave receiving unit to measure a pseudo range and a range rate of each of these identified GPS satellites, and for extracting a navigation message included in each of said radio waves;

a GPS satellite behavior estimating unit for calculating a position and a velocity of each of the GPS satellites from the navigation message extracted by said signal processing unit;

a pseudo range error estimating unit for estimating a pseudo range error on a basis of the pseudo range and the range rate which are measured by said signal processing unit;

a user position observing unit for calculating a position of the navigation equipment by using the pseudo range measured by said signal processing unit, the position of each of the GPS satellites calculated by said GPS satellite behavior estimating unit, and the pseudo range error estimated by said pseudo range error estimating unit;

a user velocity and heading observing unit for calculating a velocity of the navigation equipment from the range rate measured by said signal processing unit, the position of each of the GPS satellites calculated by said GPS satellite behavior estimating unit, and the position of the navigation equipment calculated by said user position observing unit; and

a user heading searching unit for, when a multipath error included in the pseudo range error estimated by said pseudo range error estimating unit is smaller than a specified value, searching for, as a heading of the navigation equipment, a heading whose range rate, which is calculated on a basis of a relative movement of the navigation equipment having the position acquired by said user position observing unit and the velocity acquired by said user velocity and heading observing unit at a time when the navigation equipment changes its heading within a predetermined angle range with respect to a GPS satellite having the position and the velocity estimated by said GPS satellite behavior estimating unit, matches the range rate measured by said signal processing unit.

2. The navigation equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that the navigation equipment includes a velocity sensor for outputting a signal according to the velocity of the navigation equipment, and a user velocity measuring unit for measuring the velocity of the navigation equipment from the signal from said velocity sensor, and the user velocity and heading observing unit calculates the velocity of the navigation equipment on a basis of the velocity measured by said user velocity measuring unit.

3. The navigation equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that the navigation equipment includes a map data storage unit for storing map data about a predetermined area including road links, and a road comparing unit for comparing the position calculated by the user position observing unit and the heading searched for by the user heading searching unit with a position and a direction of a road link stored in said map data storage unit respectively so as to set up candidates for the position of the navigation equipment on a road link where there is a high possibility that the navigation equipment is existing.

4. The navigation equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that the road comparing unit updates a position of each of the candidates on the road link on a basis of the velocity calculated by the user velocity and heading observing unit and the heading searched for by the user heading searching unit, and evaluates a reliability of each of the candidates according to a difference between the heading searched for by said user heading searching unit and that of the road link so as to select, as the position of the navigation equipment, the position of a candidate providing the highest reliability among all the candidates.

9. The navigation equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that when determining a heading which provides a match between a measurement value and an estimated value of the range rate on a basis of radio waves emitted from a plurality of GPS satellites, the user heading searching unit determines the heading of the navigation equipment on a basis of results of performing a statistical process on a plurality of determined headings.

11. The navigation equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that when determining a heading which provides a match between a measurement value and an estimated value of the range rate at each of a plurality of points, the user heading searching unit determines the heading of the navigation equipment on a basis of results of performing a statistical process on a plurality of determined headings.

13. The navigation equipment according to claim 3, characterized in that the user heading searching unit searches for, as the heading of the navigation equipment, a heading which provides a match between a measurement value and an estimated value of the range rate within a predetermined angle range including directions of road links where the plurality of candidates set up by the road comparing unit exist respectively.

15. The navigation equipment according to claim 3, characterized in that when the candidates set up by the road comparing unit exist in a predetermined area including a branch point, an intersection, or a heading change point of a road link, the road comparing unit corrects the position in such a way that the position is on a road link which is closest to the heading determined by the user heading searching unit.

16. The navigation equipment according to claim 3, characterized in that when the candidates set up by the road comparing unit exist in a predetermined area including a branch point, an intersection, or a heading change point of a road link, the road comparing unit corrects the position in such a way that the position is on a road link which is closest to the heading determined by the user heading searching unit.

17. The navigation equipment according to claim 2, characterized in that the navigation equipment further includes a user velocity searching unit for, when the heading of the navigation equipment matches the heading searched for by the user heading searching unit, searching for a coefficient by which the velocity of the navigation equipment is to be multiplied in such a way that a range rate which is calculated on a basis of a relative movement between the navigation equipment and a GPS satellite matches the range rate measured by the signal processing unit, and the user velocity measuring unit multiplies the signal from the velocity sensor by this coefficient and measures the velocity of the navigation equipment.

5. Navigation equipment comprising:

a velocity sensor for outputting a signal according to a velocity of the navigation equipment;

a user velocity measuring unit for measuring the velocity of the navigation equipment from the signal from said velocity sensor;

an angular velocity sensor for outputting a signal according to a turning angle of the navigation equipment;

a user turning angle measuring unit for measuring the turning angle of the navigation equipment from the signal from said angular velocity sensor;

a user behavior measuring unit for calculating a position, the velocity, and a heading of the navigation equipment by using the velocity measured by said user velocity measuring unit and the turning angle measured by said user turning angle measuring unit;

a radio wave receiving unit for receiving radio waves emitted from a plurality of GPS satellites;

a signal processing unit for identifying the GPS satellites which are emission sources of the radio waves received by said radio wave receiving unit to measure a pseudo range and a range rate of each of these identified GPS satellites, and for extracting a navigation message included in each of said radio waves;

a GPS satellite behavior estimating unit for calculating a position and a velocity of each of the GPS satellites from the navigation message extracted by said signal processing unit;

a pseudo range error estimating unit for estimating a pseudo range error on a basis of the pseudo range and the range rate which are measured by said signal processing unit;

a user position observing unit for calculating the position of the navigation equipment by using the pseudo range measured by said signal processing unit, the position of each of the GPS satellites calculated by said GPS satellite behavior estimating unit, and the pseudo range error estimated by said pseudo range error estimating unit, and for correcting the position calculated by said user behavior measuring unit; and

a user heading searching unit for, when a multipath error included in the pseudo range error estimated by said pseudo range error estimating unit is smaller than a specified value, searching for, as the heading of the navigation equipment, a heading whose range rate, which is calculated on a basis of a relative movement of the navigation equipment having the position and the velocity calculated by said user behavior measuring unit at a time when the navigation equipment changes its heading within a predetermined angle range with respect to a GPS satellite having the position and the velocity estimated by said GPS satellite behavior estimating unit, matches the range rate measured by said signal processing unit.

6. The navigation equipment according to claim 5, characterized in that said navigation equipment includes an angular velocity sensor correcting unit for determining an offset error in the angular velocity sensor on a basis of the heading calculated by the user behavior measuring unit and the heading searched for by the user heading searching unit, and the user turning angle measuring unit measures the turning angle of the navigation equipment after correcting the signal from the angular velocity sensor according to the offset error informed thereto from said angular velocity sensor correcting unit.

7. The navigation equipment according to claim 6, characterized in that the navigation equipment includes a map data storage unit for storing map data about a predetermined area including road links, and a road comparing unit for comparing the position and the heading calculated by the user behavior measuring unit with a position and a heading of a road link stored in said map data storage unit respectively so as to set up candidates for the position of the navigation equipment on a road link where there is a high possibility that the navigation equipment is existing.

8. The navigation equipment according to claim 7, characterized in that the road comparing unit updates a position of each of the candidates on the road link on a basis of the velocity calculated by the user velocity measuring unit and the turning angle calculated by the user turning angle measuring unit, and evaluates a reliability of each of the candidates according to a difference between the heading searched for by said user heading searching unit and that of the road link so as to select, as the position of the navigation equipment, the position of a candidate providing the highest reliability among all the candidates.

10. The navigation equipment according to claim 5, characterized in that when determining a heading which provides a match between a measurement value and an estimated value of the range rate on a basis of radio waves emitted from a plurality of GPS satellites, the user heading searching unit determines the heading of the navigation equipment on a basis of results of performing a statistical process on a plurality of determined headings.

12. The navigation equipment according to claim 5, characterized in that when determining a heading which provides a match between a measurement value and an estimated value of the range rate at each of a plurality of points, the user heading searching unit determines the heading of the navigation equipment on a basis of results of performing a statistical process on a plurality of determined headings.

14. The navigation equipment according to claim 7, characterized in that the user heading searching unit searches for, as the heading of the navigation equipment, a heading which provides a match between a measurement value and an estimated value of the range rate within a predetermined angle range including directions of road links where the plurality of candidates set up by the road comparing unit exist respectively.

18. The navigation equipment according to claim 5, characterized in that the navigation equipment further includes a user velocity searching unit for, when the heading of the navigation equipment matches the heading searched for by the user heading searching unit, searching for a coefficient by which the velocity of the navigation equipment is to be multiplied in such a way that a range rate which is calculated on a basis of a relative movement between the navigation equipment and a GPS satellite matches the range rate measured by the signal processing unit, and the user velocity measuring unit multiplies the signal from the velocity sensor by this coefficient and measures the velocity of the navigation equipment.