1 Introduction
SINS has the advantage of the giving continuous
navigation information, independent of the external
environment. However, because of the drawback of error
drift, SINS is often mixed with other sensors, such as CNS
and GPS. CNS can provide precise attitude information by
star sensor, but it is disturbed easily by atmosphere
environment. GPS can obtain the accurate position and
velocity information continuously, but it is lack of credibity
due to multipath or mask effects. Consequently, the
SINS/CNS/GPS association can improve the precision and
reliability of navigation system.
At present, the linear Kalman filter
[1][2]
is used in the
SINS/CNS navigation system
[3]
and the SINS/GPS
navigation system
[4]
. However, the above methods only
modify the attitude, position and velocity separately, not
combine them. Carlson proposed a federated Kalman filter
approach
[5][6]
to solve this problem. The approach employs
the distributed filter to fuse the attitude, position and
velocity. Now it is only the basic fusion approach of
SINS/CNS/GPS integrated navigation system. All the
methods above employ the linear error models, thus the
precisions of these approaches are less accurate than those
methods employing the nonlinear error models. Julier
proposed the UKF (Unscented Kalman Filter) method
[7-9]
to
solve the problem. This method employs sampling strategy
to approximate the nonlinear distribution and probability
density of nonlinear functions. The accuracy of the method
is correct up to the second order
[10]
and it can get higher
order with special sampling strategies
[11]
. Li Tao
[12]
applied
UKF to nonlinear error models for SINS/GPS integrated
navigation systems and used quaternion to denote vehicle’s
This project is supported by the National Nature Science Foundation
(60535010)
attitudes. However, this method is lack of accurate attitude
information from CNS.
This paper re-examines the above problems and
introduces a new algorithm to the SINS/CNS/GPS
nonlinear system (the SINS/CNS/GPS system with
nonlinear state models). The algorithm builds up the
SINS/CNS and the SINS/GPS nonlinear local filter and
employs UKF to filter them. The filtering results are fused
by a federated Kalman filter. The advantages of the
algorithm are as follows:
1. The rotation vector model
[13]
is introduced to denote
vehicle’s attitude and has less variables than the
quaternion. Consequently, in UKF, the rotation
vector model has less state dimensions and sigma
points than the quaternion model. Thus, the rotation
vector model can reduce the computational costs
[14]
and the sampling non-local effects
[15]
.
2. The algorithm incorporates UKF with federated
Kalman filter and employs more accurate nonlinear
error model.
3. The system model is divided into the linear error
and the nonlinear error model. The simplified
version of the UKF method can be utilized to
estimate the system error model, which can both
lead to less calculation and reduce algorithm
implement time, as well as improve the real time
and upgrade the precision of system.
4. A new method is introduced to avoid the singular
covariance problem in the federated Kalman filter.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section
2 we describe the UT transform, UKF and the federated
Kalman filter. In Section 3 we describe the nonlinear error
model and the whole filter process. In Section 4 we
simulate the algorithm and show the simulation results. In
Section 5 we conclude the discussion of the new algorithm.
SINS/CNS/GPS integrated navigation algorithm based on UKF
Hu Haidong, Huang Xianlin
Center for Control Theory and Guidance Technology, Haerbin Institute of Technology, Haerbin 150001, P.R.China
Abstract: In this paper a new nonlinear algorithm is proposed for SINS (Strapdown Inertial Navigation) /CNS (Celestial
Navigation System)/GPS (Global Positioning System) integrated navigation system. The algorithm employs a nonlinear
system error model which can be modified by UKF (Unscented Kalman Filter) to give predictions of local filters. And these
predictions can be fused by the federated Kalman filter. In the system error model, the rotation vector is introduced to denote
vehicle’s attitude and has less variables than the quaternion. Also, the UKF method is simplified to estimate the system error
model, which can both lead to less calculation and reduce algorithm implement time. In the information fusion section, a
modified federated Kalman filter is proposed to solve the singular covariance problem. Specifically, we apply the new
algorithm to maneuvering vehicles and simulation results show that this algorithm is more accurate than the linear integrated
navigation algorithm.
Key words: navigation system, integrated navigation, UKF, federated Kalman filter, SINS, CNS, GPS.