Lawrence C. Vallot

Vision-aided inertial navigation

A technique of removing inertial-odometer drift errors by identifying landmarks along the vehicles route is presented. Landmark identification is performed with the use of laser range data. The scenario being developed consists of a ground vehicle equipped for autonomous retrace of a path that was stored while the vehicle was being remotely piloted to its destination. On the outbound portion of the vehicles journey, objects are detected with the laser range imagery, tracked from frame to frame, and recorded as landmarks if they meet the requirements of the landmark model. During the retrace phase, inertial-odometer data are used to guide the vehicle along the outbound path (in reverse). The landmarks recorded on the outbound path are again located during retrace, and their locations serve to remove any positional error that has occurred. This technique of vision-aided inertial navigation is presented along with processed laser range data.<<ETX>>

Differential GPS/inertial navigation terminal area guidance flight test results

Terminal area flight test results of a differential GPS (Global Positioning System) inertial navigational system are presented. The flight test was a joint Honeywell/NASA-Langley project completed in November 1990. Over 120 landings were made with the NASA Transport Systems Research Vehicle (TSRV), a specially modified Boeing 737-100, including 36 fully automatic differential GPS/inertial landings. A description of the system implementation and preliminary flight test results are provided.<<ETX>>