Low-cost IMU/odometer/GPS integrated navigation aided with two antennae heading measurement for land vehicle application

For the guidance, control and navigation of autonomous vehicles, both positioning and orientation are important for mission success and surveillance. Global positioning system (GPS) and strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS) have complementary characteristics to overcome the demerits of each other and can well perform as integrated navigation system. The observability analysis of low-cost SINS/GPS from many researches shown that the heading and yaw rate gyro bias is unobservable in straight motion and with constant acceleration. This paper presents integration of low-cost SINS/GPS aided with odometer and heading from two antennae GPS receiver to overcome this problem and to control the accuracy degradation during GPS outage. The carrier phase measurements are processed to obtain the heading from two antennae position measurement. The obtained heading and position from GPS and velocity measurement from odometer are used as observation input to extended Kalman filter (EKF) for the heading and positioning accuracy improvement of SINS/odometer/GPS integrated system for land vehicle navigation. When GPS signal is unavailable, the filter switches to SINS/odometer integration to control the position and velocity errors growth during this period. The observation model for heading measurement from two antennae is derived for the designed system. A field test was conducted to check the effectiveness using proposed method for heading and positioning accuracy improvement. The test results showed that Low-cost IMU/Odometer/ Two Antennae GPS integrated systems´ accuracy both in position and heading is improved significantly.