Influence of application conditions on terrain-aided navigation

Although the matching rules of terrain-aided navigation (TAN) have always been focused on since TAN was put forward, the application adaptability of matching algorithms are also paid attention to with the application of TAN now because the relationship of application conditions with matching precision is so important for matching algorithms that it will decide TAN´s efficiency or feasibility directly. In this paper, underwater TAN is studied and terrain contour matching (TERCOM) is applied as the matching algorithm. The effect of terrain characteristics, map resolution, initial INS error, INS precision, vehicle speed, path length, and sonar precision on matching precision is studied respectively by simulation. Some results, which are helpful for the promotion and application of TERCOM, are concluded finally.