Research Summaries

Back Assessment of Integrated IMU/EO-Sensor Navigation System for Aerial Vehicles

Fiscal Year 2020
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Yakimenko, Oleg A.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary It is proposed to assess performance of the existing Global Positioning System / Inertial Measurement Unit (GPS/IMU) solution of a small tactical Group 3 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) in the normal and GPS-denied environments while upgrading strapdown IMU sensors (accelerometers, gyros, magnetometer, barometric altimeter). It is further proposed to conduct a feasibility study on the ways and effectiveness of incorporating a data flow from an existing onboard electro-optical (EO) sensor as a substitute for the missing GPS position fix updates. Two possible approaches to evaluate include the image-matching paradigm providing the visual position fixes, resulting from scene recognition and finding distinguishable georeferenced image artifacts, and optical flow paradigm, relying on the distribution of apparent velocities of movement of brightness pattern in an image, thus providing the velocity vector fixes (visual odometry). The study will evaluate the quality of the IMU/EO navigation solution while varying EO sensor parameters (height / attitude / speed above the surface, surface texture, field of view, resolution, and frame rate). Both approaches will be assessed in a variety of off-line trade-offs using simulated and/or real video feed.
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal