Autonomous navigation of a small boat using IMU/GPS/digital compass integration

This article shows how the problem of autonomous navigation of a small boat was formulated and solved. The boat is a catamaran equipped with two water wheels driven by DC motors. A look-up table controller is used to turn on and off the DC motors. Firstly it is shown how the Kalman filter algorithm was applied to estimate in real-time the boat position and heading, using the measurements from a low-cost IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), a standard GPS receiver and a digital compass. Then a mathematical model of the boat and simulation results for the sensor integration problem and for the boat controller, are discussed. Finally, the article shows how the proposed solution for the autonomous navigation problem was implemented and tested using an embedded computer and the sensors (IMU, GPS receptor and digital compass) aboard the boat.