Vessel attitude determination system and method
First Claim
1. An apparatus for determining an attitude, comprising:
- a pair of GPS antennas capable of receiving GPS carrier signals from a plurality of GPS satellites; and
a processor that determines the attitude based upon floating point ambiguities between said GPS carrier signals received by each of said pair of GPS antennas.
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Abstract
A portable attitude determination apparatus and method are disclosed that can be used with a ship docking system. At least two receivers on a vessel receive Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite data. GPS carrier phase measurements are used to determine attitude (i.e., roll, pitch and yaw angles) of a moving platform. The phase measurements are processed to determine a precise vector from one receiver phase center to the other. The azimuth and elevation of a baseline vector is then computed. Float ambiguities between the two receivers are determined, and are used to provide initial estimates of antenna baseline length and attitude. A search procedure is then employed to find the actual integer ambiguities. Only GPS observables are needed; no other external data input is required.
81 Citations
30 Claims
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1. An apparatus for determining an attitude, comprising:
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a pair of GPS antennas capable of receiving GPS carrier signals from a plurality of GPS satellites; and a processor that determines the attitude based upon floating point ambiguities between said GPS carrier signals received by each of said pair of GPS antennas. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method for determining an attitude, comprising:
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receiving GPS carrier signals from a plurality of GPS satellites at a pair of GPS antennas; and determining the attitude based upon floating point ambiguities between said GPS carrier signals received by each of said pair of GPS antennas. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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Specification