Optimum Alignment of an Inertial Autonavigator

The performance of an inertial autonavigator can only be as good as the accuracy to which the system is initially aligned. Optical methods of alignment can be performed with high precision; however, this technique requires external equipment and is subject to some physical constraints, such as land-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on aerospace and electronic systems Vol. AES-3; no. 6; pp. 880 - 888
Main Authors Jurenka, Frank D., Leondes, Cornelius T.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.11.1967
Subjects
Accelerometer
Accelerometers
Aircraft navigation
Azimuth
Computer errors
control law
Control systems
drift rate
Error correction
error model
gyro
gyrocompassing
inertial system
Instruments
linear filter
Motion control
navigation
Optical sensors
Schuler-tuned system
Velocity control
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ISSN0018-9251
DOI10.1109/TAES.1967.5408659

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Summary:The performance of an inertial autonavigator can only be as good as the accuracy to which the system is initially aligned. Optical methods of alignment can be performed with high precision; however, this technique requires external equipment and is subject to some physical constraints, such as land-based operation. The general problem discussed here is the use of an automatic azimuth alignment technique known as gyrocompassing. In the use of the gyrocompassing technique to obtain azimuth alignment, accuracies are degraded considerably by two dominant error sources, the level axis controlling gyro drift rate and the imperfections of reference or independent velocity information. Consequently, an optimum performance controller is developed for driving the system in this mechanization and is based on a priori knowledge of the second-order statistics of the system error sources. The performance criteria will be to minimize the mean square azimuth error.
ISSN:0018-9251
DOI:10.1109/TAES.1967.5408659