GPS/INS Combination for a Beam Tracking System

Abstract: In recent years, Land vehicle navigation system (LVNS) technology is a subject of great interest due to its potential for both consumer and business vehicle markets. GPS/INS ( Global Positioning System/ Inertial Navigation System ) integrated system is an effective solution to realize the LVNS. And how to keep communication between the vehicle and satellite while the vehicle is running in a bad environment is the main task in this thesis. The thesis provides an introduction to beam tracking system and two algorithms of how to improve the performance, then compare these two algorithms and choose the suitable one and implement it on ArduPilotMega board using Arduino language, at last test the integrated GPS/INS system in practice in order to estimate the performance. The requirements of the project are the maximum angular speed and angular acceleration speed of the vehicle are  and , respectively. Two algorithms which are Direction Cosine Matrix (DCM) and Euler Angle are evaluated in the system. In this thesis, there are many rotations due to the hostile environment, and DCM algorithm is not suitable for the requirement according to the results of simulation. Therefore, an innovated method which is Euler Angle Algorithm can be one effective way to solve the probelm. The primary idea of Euler Angle algorithm is to calculate the difference between the reference direction vector and the measurement direction vector from GPS and accelerometers, once there is an error rotation, take the cross product and rotate the incorrect direction vector back to original direction. The simulation results show that by implementing EA algorithm, system requirements can be achievable with a 10kHz update rate antenna and a 4000Hz sampling rate gyroscope, also with EA implementation in ArduPilotMega board, the real system tracking ability can be enhanced effectively.