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Article
Publication date: 28 November 2018

Qigao Fan, Jie Jia, Peng Pan, Hai Zhang and Yan Sun

The purpose of this paper is to relate to the real-time navigation and tracking of pedestrians in a closed environment. To restrain accumulated error of low-cost…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to relate to the real-time navigation and tracking of pedestrians in a closed environment. To restrain accumulated error of low-cost microelectromechanical system inertial navigation system and adapt to the real-time navigation of pedestrians at different speeds, the authors proposed an improved inertial navigation system (INS)/pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR)/ultra wideband (UWB) integrated positioning method for indoor foot-mounted pedestrians.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper proposes a self-adaptive integrated positioning algorithm that can recognize multi-gait and realize a high accurate pedestrian multi-gait indoor positioning. First, the corresponding gait method is used to detect different gaits of pedestrians at different velocities; second, the INS/PDR/UWB integrated system is used to get the positioning information. Thus, the INS/UWB integrated system is used when the pedestrian moves at normal speed; the PDR/UWB integrated system is used when the pedestrian moves at rapid speed. Finally, the adaptive Kalman filter correction method is adopted to modify system errors and improve the positioning performance of integrated system.

Findings

The algorithm presented in this paper improves performance of indoor pedestrian integrated positioning system from three aspects: in the view of different pedestrian gaits at different speeds, the zero velocity detection and stride frequency detection are adopted on the integrated positioning system. Further, the accuracy of inertial positioning systems can be improved; the attitude fusion filter is used to obtain the optimal quaternion and improve the accuracy of INS positioning system and PDR positioning system; because of the errors of adaptive integrated positioning system, the adaptive filter is proposed to correct errors and improve integrated positioning accuracy and stability. The adaptive filtering algorithm can effectively restrain the divergence problem caused by outliers. Compared to the KF algorithm, AKF algorithm can better improve the fault tolerance and precision of integrated positioning system.

Originality/value

The INS/PDR/UWB integrated system is built to track pedestrian position and attitude. Finally, an adaptive Kalman filter is used to improve the accuracy and stability of integrated positioning system.

Article
Publication date: 12 August 2019

Gang Shi, Xisheng Li, Zhe Wang and Yanxia Liu

The magnetometer measurement update plays a key role in correcting yaw estimation in fusion algorithms, and hence, the yaw estimation is vulnerable to magnetic disturbances. The…

Abstract

Purpose

The magnetometer measurement update plays a key role in correcting yaw estimation in fusion algorithms, and hence, the yaw estimation is vulnerable to magnetic disturbances. The purpose of this study is to improve the ability of the fusion algorithm to deal with magnetic disturbances.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, an adaptive measurement equation based on vehicle status is derived, which can constrain the yaw estimation from drifting when vehicle is running straight. Using this new measurement, a Kalman filter-based fusion algorithm is constructed, and its performance is evaluated experimentally.

Findings

The experiments results demonstrate that the new measurement update works as an effective supplement to the magnetometer measurement update in the present of magnetic disturbances, and the proposed fusion algorithm has better yaw estimation accuracy than the conventional algorithm.

Originality/value

The paper proposes a new adaptive measurement equation for yaw estimation based on vehicle status. And, using this measurement, the fusion algorithm can not only reduce the weight of disturbed sensor measurement but also utilize the character of vehicle running to deal with magnetic disturbances. This strategy can also be used in other orientation estimation fields.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 39 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 June 2013

Rong Wang, Jianye Liu, Zhi Xiong and Qinghua Zeng

The Embedded GPS/INS System (EGI) has been used more widely as central navigation equipment of aircraft. For certain cases needing high attitude accuracy, star sensor can be…

Abstract

Purpose

The Embedded GPS/INS System (EGI) has been used more widely as central navigation equipment of aircraft. For certain cases needing high attitude accuracy, star sensor can be integrated with EGI to improve attitude performance. Since the filtering‐correction loop has already built in finished EGI product, centralized or federated Kalman filter is not applicable for integrating EGI with star sensor; it is a challenge to design multi‐sensor information fusion algorithm suitable for this situation. The purpose of this paper is to present a double‐layer fusion scheme and algorithms to meet the practical need of constructing integrated multi‐sensor navigation system by star sensor assisting finished EGI unit.

Design/methodology/approach

The alternate fusion algorithms for asynchronous measurements and the sequential fusion algorithms for synchronous measurements are presented. By combining alternate filtering and sequential filtering algorithms, a kind of double‐layer fusion algorithms for multi‐sensors is proposed and validated by semi‐physical test in this paper.

Findings

The double‐layer fusion algorithms represent a filtering strategy for multiple non‐identical parallel sensors to assist INS, while the independent estimation‐correction loop in EGI is still maintained. It has significant benefits in updating original navigation system by integrating new sensors.

Practical implications

The approach described in this paper can be used in designing similar multi‐sensor information fusion navigation system composed by EGI and various kinds of sensors, so as to improve the navigation performance.

Originality/value

Compared with conventional approach, in the situation that centralized and federated Kalman filter are not applicable, the double‐layer fusion scheme and algorithms give an external filtering strategy for measurements of finished EGI unit and star sensors.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 85 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0002-2667

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 March 2018

Haiying Liu, Xin Jiang, Yazhou Yue and Guangen Gao

The study aims to propose reverse processing solution to improve the performance of strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS) initial alignment and SINS-/global positioning…

263

Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to propose reverse processing solution to improve the performance of strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS) initial alignment and SINS-/global positioning system- (GPS) integrated navigation. The proposed scheme can be well applied in the fields of aircraft and aerospace navigation.

Design/methodology/approach

For the SINS alignment phase, a fast initial alignment scheme is proposed: the initial value of reverse filter is determined by the final result of forward filter, and then, the reverse filter is carried out using the stored data. Multiple iterations are performed until the accuracy is satisfied. For the SINS-/GPS-integrated phase, a forward–reverse navigation algorithm is proposed: first, the standard forward filter is used, and then, the reverse filter is carried out using the initial value determined by the forward filter, and the final fusion results are achieved by the weighted smoothing of the forward and reverse filtering results.

Findings

The simulation and the actual test results show that in the initial alignment stage, the proposed reverse processing method can obviously shorten the SINS alignment time and improve the alignment accuracy. In the SINS-/GPS-integrated navigation data fusion stage, the proposed forward–reverse data fusion processing can, obviously, improve the performance of the navigation solution.

Practical implications

The proposed reverse processing technology has an important application in improving the accuracy of navigation and evaluating the performance of real-time navigation. The proposed scheme can be not only used for SINS-/GPS-integrated system but also applied to other integrated systems for general aviation aircraft.

Originality/value

Compared with the common forward filtering algorithm, the proposed reverse scheme can not only shorten alignment time and improve alignment accuracy but also improve the performance of the integrated navigation.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 90 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 August 2014

Sanketh Ailneni, Sudesh K. Kashyap and N. Shantha Kumar

The purpose of this paper is to present fusion of inertial navigation system (INS) and global positioning system (GPS) for estimating position, velocities, attitude and heading of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present fusion of inertial navigation system (INS) and global positioning system (GPS) for estimating position, velocities, attitude and heading of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Design/methodology/approach

A 15-state extended Kalman filter (EKF) and a split architecture consisting of six-state nonlinear complementary filter (NCF) and nine-state EKF are investigated in detail. In both these fusion architectures GPS and inertial measurement unit consisting of three axis accelerometers, three axis rate gyros and three axis magnetometer have been fused in open loop fashion (loosely coupled) to estimate the navigation states.

Findings

These architectures have been implemented in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and evaluated in closed loop guidance of Black-Kite MAV with software-in-the-loop-simulation (SILS) setup. Furthermore, both the algorithms are validated with flight test data obtained from on-board data logger using an off-the shelf autopilot board (Ardupilot Mega APM-2.5) on SLYBIRD UAV.

Originality/value

The proposed architectures are of high value to accomplish INS/GPS fusion, which plays a vital role in autonomous guidance and navigation of an UAV.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, vol. 2 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-6427

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 June 2017

Qiang Shen, Jieyu Liu, Huang Huang, Qi Wang and Weiwei Qin

The purpose of this study is to explore a signal processing method to improve the angular rate accuracy of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) gyroscope by combining numerous…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore a signal processing method to improve the angular rate accuracy of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) gyroscope by combining numerous gyroscopes.

Design/methodology/approach

To improve the dynamic performance of the signal processing method, the interacting multiple model (IMM) can be applied to the fusion of gyroscope array. However, the standard IMM has constant Markov parameter, which may reduce the model switching speed. To overcome this problem, an adaptive IMM filter is developed based on the kurtosis of the gyroscope output, in which the transition probabilities are adjusted online by utilizing the dynamic information of the rate signal.

Findings

The experimental results indicate that the precision of the gyroscope array composed of six gyroscopes increases significantly and the kurtosis-based adaptive Markov parameter IMM filter (K-IMM) performs better than the baseline methods, especially under dynamic conditions. These experiments prove the validity of the proposed fusion method.

Practical implications

The proposed method can improve the accuracy of MEMS gyroscopes without breakthrough on hardware, which is necessary to extend their utility while not restricting the overwhelming advantages.

Original/value

A K-IMM algorithm is proposed in this paper, which is used to improve the angular rate accuracy of MEMS gyroscope by combining numerous gyroscopes.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 37 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 January 2018

Zhemin Zhuang, Zhijie Guo, Alex Noel Joseph Raj and Canzhu Guo

A toy UAV performs tumbling, rolling, racing and other complex activities. It is based on low-cost hardware and hence requires a better algorithm to estimate the attitudes more…

Abstract

Purpose

A toy UAV performs tumbling, rolling, racing and other complex activities. It is based on low-cost hardware and hence requires a better algorithm to estimate the attitudes more accurately with low power consumption. The proposed technique based on optimized Madgwick filter and moving average filter (MAF) ensures improved convergence speed in estimating the attitude, achieves higher accuracy and provides robustness and stability of the toy UAV. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

Traditional methods are prone to problems such as slow convergence speed and errors in calculation of the attitude angles. These errors cause the vehicle to drift and tremble, thus affecting the overall stability of the vehicle. The proposed method combines the features of optimized Madgwick filter and MAF to provide better accuracy, achieved through the fusion of gyroscope and accelerometer data, and zero correction to eliminate the random drift error of the gyroscope and removal of high-frequency interference by MAF of the accelerometer data. The experimental results on actual flight data showed that the method was better than the conventional Madgwick and Mahony complementary filters.

Findings

The performance of the proposed method was analyzed by estimating the pitch and roll angles under the static and dynamic condition of the toy UAV. The results were compared with two traditional methods: Madgwick and Mahony complement filter. In the static condition, the variance and average error while estimating the attitudes was comparatively lower than the traditional method. For the dynamic conditions, the convergence time to achieve a prescribed swing angle was again lower than the traditional method. From these two experiments, it can be seen that the proposed method provides better attitude estimation at lower computation time.

Originality/value

The proposed method combines the optimized Madgwick filter and MAF to accuracy estimate the attitude of toy UAV. The algorithm mainly suits the toy UAVs which are based on low-cost hardware and require better control systems to ensure stability of the vehicle. The experimental results on real flight data illustrate that the method not only improves the convergence speed in estimating the attitude angle for large maneuvers of the toy UAV, but also achieves higher accuracy in the attitude estimation, thus ensuring the robustness and stability of the UAV.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-6427

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 July 2018

Bing Hua, Zhiwen Zhang, Yunhua Wu and Zhiming Chen

The geomagnetic field vector is a function of the satellite’s position. The position and speed of the satellite can be determined by comparing the geomagnetic field vector…

Abstract

Purpose

The geomagnetic field vector is a function of the satellite’s position. The position and speed of the satellite can be determined by comparing the geomagnetic field vector measured by on board three-axis magnetometer with the standard value of the international geomagnetic field. The geomagnetic model has the disadvantages of uncertainty, low precision and long-term variability. Therefore, accuracy of autonomous navigation using the magnetometer is low. The purpose of this paper is to use the geomagnetic and sunlight information fusion algorithm to improve the orbit accuracy.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, an autonomous navigation method for low earth orbit satellite is studied by fusing geomagnetic and solar energy information. The algorithm selects the cosine value of the angle between the solar light vector and the geomagnetic vector, and the geomagnetic field intensity as observation. The Adaptive Unscented Kalman Filter (AUKF) filter is used to estimate the speed and position of the satellite, and the simulation research is carried out. This paper also made the same study using the UKF filter for comparison with the AUKF filter.

Findings

The algorithm of adding the sun direction vector information improves the positioning accuracy compared with the simple geomagnetic navigation, and the convergence and stability of the filter are better. The navigation error does not accumulate with time and has engineering application value. It also can be seen that AUKF filtering accuracy is better than UKF filtering accuracy.

Research limitations/implications

Geomagnetic navigation is greatly affected by the accuracy of magnetometer. This paper does not consider the spacecraft’s environmental interference with magnetic sensors.

Practical implications

Magnetometers and solar sensors are common sensors for micro-satellites. Near-Earth satellite orbit has abundant geomagnetic field resources. Therefore, the algorithm will have higher engineering significance in the practical application of low orbit micro-satellites orbit determination.

Originality/value

This paper introduces a satellite autonomous navigation algorithm. The AUKF geomagnetic filter algorithm using sunlight information can obviously improve the navigation accuracy and meet the basic requirements of low orbit small satellite orbit determination.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, vol. 11 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-378X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 October 2022

Jian Chen, Shaojing Song, Yang Gu and Shanxin Zhang

At present, smartphones are embedded with accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and WiFi sensors. Most researchers have delved into the use of these sensors for localization…

Abstract

Purpose

At present, smartphones are embedded with accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and WiFi sensors. Most researchers have delved into the use of these sensors for localization. However, there are still many problems in reducing fingerprint mismatching and fusing these positioning data. The purpose of this paper is to improve positioning accuracy by reducing fingerprint mismatching and designing a weighted fusion algorithm.

Design/methodology/approach

For the problem of magnetic mismatching caused by singularity fingerprint, derivative Euclidean distance uses adjacent fingerprints to eliminate the influence of singularity fingerprint. To improve the positioning accuracy and robustness of the indoor navigation system, a weighted extended Kalman filter uses a weighted factor to fuse multisensor data.

Findings

The scenes of the teaching building, study room and office building are selected to collect data to test the algorithm’s performance. Experiments show that the average positioning accuracies of the teaching building, study room and office building are 1.41 m, 1.17 m, and 1.77 m, respectively.

Originality/value

The algorithm proposed in this paper effectively reduces fingerprint mismatching and improve positioning accuracy by adding a weighted factor. It provides a feasible solution for indoor positioning.

Article
Publication date: 16 July 2019

Bin Liu, Jiangtao Xu, Bangsheng Fu, Yong Hao and Tianyu An

Regarding the important roles of accuracy and robustness of tightly-coupled micro inertial measurement unit (MIMU)/global navigation satellite system (GNSS) for unmanned aerial…

Abstract

Purpose

Regarding the important roles of accuracy and robustness of tightly-coupled micro inertial measurement unit (MIMU)/global navigation satellite system (GNSS) for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). This study aims to explore the efficient method to improve the real-time performance of the sensors.

Design/methodology/approach

A covariance shaping adaptive Kalman filtering method is developed. For optimal performance of multiple gyros and accelerometers, a distribution coefficient of precision is defined and the data fusion least square method is applied with fault detection and identification using the singular value decomposition. A dual channel parallel filter scheme with a covariance shaping adaptive filter is proposed.

Findings

Hardware-in-the-loop numerical simulation was adopted, the results indicate that the gain of the covariance shaping adaptive filter is self-tuning by changing covariance weighting factor, which is calculated by minimizing the cost function of Frobenius norm. With the improved method, the positioning accuracy with tightly-coupled MIMU/GNSS of the adaptive Kalman filter is increased obviously.

Practical implications

The method of covariance shaping adaptive Kalman filtering is efficient to improve the accuracy and robustness of tightly-coupled MIMU/GNSS for UAV in complex and dynamic environments and has great value for engineering applications.

Originality/value

A covariance shaping adaptive Kalman filtering method is presented and a novel dual channel parallel filter scheme with a covariance shaping adaptive filter is proposed, to improve the real-time performance in complex and dynamic environments.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 91 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

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