Sensor Fusion Navigation for Sounding Rocket Applications

Abstract: One of Saab Space’s products is the S19 guidance system for sounding rockets.Today this system is based on an inertial navigation system that blindly calculatesthe position of the rocket by integrating sensor readings with unknown bias. Thepurpose of this thesis is to integrate a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiverinto the guidance system to increase precision and robustness. There are mainlytwo problems involved in this integration. One is to integrate the GPS with sensorfusion into the existing guidance system. The seconds is to get the GPS satellitetracking to work under extremely high dynamics. The first of the two problems issolved by using an Extended Kalman filter (EKF) with two different linearizations.One of them is uses Euler angles and the other is done with quaternions. Theintegration technique implemented in this thesis is a loose integration between theGPS receiver and the inertial navigation system. The main task of the EKF isto estimate the bias of the inertial navigation system sensors and correct it toeliminate drift in the position. The solution is verified by computing the positionof a car using a GPS and an inertial measurement unit. Different solutions to theGPS tracking problem are proposed in a pre-study.