A vehicle position and heading measurement system using corner cube and laser beam

The authors propose a method for obtaining the position and heading of a ground vehicle. This method is realized by four vehicle-borne laser transceiver units and two corner cube reflectors set on both sides of a test path. The method recognizes the corner cubes by the laser units, and determines the accurate position and heading based on the triangulation principle. The obtained position and heading are applied to compensate errors caused by a dead-reckoning positioning method. Experimental results for an automobile show that the proposed method can perform accurate compensations