Post-mission high accuracy position and orientation system

• US 8,232,917 B2
• Filed: 01/20/2010
• Issued: 07/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trimble Navigation Limited (Trimble Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Trimble Navigation Limited (Trimble Inc.)
• Inventors: Scherzinger, Bruno M., Hutton, Joseph J., Vollath, Ulrich
• Primary Examiner(s): Phan, Dao
• Application Number:
  US12/690,287
• Publication Number:
  US 20100169001A1
• Time in Patent Office: 923 Days
• Field of Search: 342/357.2, 342/357.23, 342/357.24, 342/357.26, 701/206, 701/207, 701/467
• US Class Current: 342/357.24
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/005 with correlation of navigation data from several sources, e.g. map or contour matching G01C21/30 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/43 using carrier phase measurements, e.g. kinematic positioning; using long or short baseline interferometry

Abstract

A method of generating post-mission position and orientation data comprises generating position and orientation data representing positions and orientations of a mobile platform, based on global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data and inertial navigation system (INS) data acquired during a data acquisition period by the mobile platform, using a network real-time kinematic (RTK) subsystem to generate correction data associated with the data acquisition period, and correcting the position and orientation data based on the correction data. The RTK subsystem may implement a virtual reference station (VRS) technique to generate the correction data.

Claims

1. A GNSS-AINS post-processing system comprising:

a VRS module to input rover GNSS observables previously acquired and recorded by a GNSS subsystem on an aircraft during a data acquisition period, the VRS module including

a network module to input a set of reference GNSS observables acquired during said data acquisition period by a plurality of fixed GNSS receiver stations and to produce a set of corrected reference GNSS observables; and

a VRS generator to compute a set of VRS observables applicable to a VRS position for the data acquisition period, based on the corrected reference GNSS observables and the rover GNSS observables; and

a GNSS-AINS module to compute positions and orientations of the aircraft for the data acquisition period based on the VRS observables, the rover GNSS observables and IMU data acquired and recorded during the data acquisition period by an IMU on the aircraft, including

an inertial navigation module to compute the positions and orientations of the aircraft for the data acquisition period based on the IMU data and based on correction data indicating corrections for predetermined types of uncertainties; and

a correction module to generate the correction data.

2. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the network module determines an estimate of atmospheric error in the reference GNSS observables and corrects the reference GNSS observables based on the estimate.

3. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said system comprises:

a Kalman filter to generate estimates of inertial navigation error based on the rover GNSS observables and the VRS observables and to generate carrier phase measurements;

an ambiguity resolution module to determine integer ambiguities based on the estimates and to indicate the integer ambiguities to the Kalman filter; and

an error controller to provide corrections to the inertial navigation unit based on the carrier phase measurements.