Land-vehicle navigation using GPS

TLDR

GPS has enabled practical navigation for a wide range of land vehicles, including motor vehicles, farming and mining equipment, golf carts, and mobile robots. This study quantitatively examines how individual navigation sensors influence the performance of land‑vehicle navigation systems. The authors evaluate a spectrum of sensor performance levels and their impact on vehicle positioning accuracy. Results show that positioning error is dominated by GPS receiver accuracy when available and by gyro bias drift when not, and that GPS accuracy significantly alters the relative contributions of dead‑reckoning sensor errors, informing system and sensor design.

Abstract

The Global Positioning System (GPS) has made navigation systems practical for a number of land-vehicle navigation applications. Today, GPS-based navigation systems can be found in motor vehicles, farming and mining equipment, and a variety of other land-based vehicles (e.g., golf carts and mobile robots). Each of these applications is discussed and the reader is introduced to some of the issues involved with each one. One particular technical aspect of navigation for land vehicles is discussed. Specifically, the research discussed in this paper presents a quantitative examination of the impact that individual navigation sensors have on the perfomance of a land-vehicle navigation system. A range of navigation sensor performance levels and their influence on vehicle positioning accuracy are examined. Results show that, for a typical navigation system, positioning error is dominated by the accuracy of the position fixes provided by the GPS receiver when GPS position fixes are available and by the rate gyro's bias drift when GPS position fixes are not available. Furthermore, results show that the accuracy of the GPS position fixes has a significant impact on the relative contributions that each dead-reckoning navigation sensor error makes. The implications of these results for navigation system design and sensor design are discussed.