Yang Dongkai

In-vehicle GPS/DR navigation system development and test results in Singapore

This paper introduces the in-car navigation system prototype development and test results under the context of Singapore. In the system, integrated GPS/DR is used for continuous vehicle positioning. A digital road network map database is built for the whole Singapore. The database is designed to support map matching, route determination, and route guidance functions. The prototype system demonstrates GPS positioning of the vehicle in real-time, tracking the vehicle onto a digital map with fix updates every one or two seconds. With the map matched vehicle location on the map, voice and/or text guidance is provide to the driver. The vehicle position can also be transferred to control centre through communication data link for the purpose of fleet management.

Land vehicle positioning using GPS and dead reckoning

To ensure reliable land vehicle positioning, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is one of the best techniques commonly used in present-day positioning systems. However, GPS signals are not available if line of sight with the satellites is lost. In this respect, the addition of the Dead Reckoning (DR) method to complement the GPS unit would enhance the reliability of land vehicle positioning system. For implementing the DR method, the magnetic sensor and accelerometer are used for obtaining heading and velocity or distance information. Calibration of two sensors’ dynamic model and DR algorithm are also introduced in this paper. The test result utilizing the GPS and DR methods is analyzed in this paper. It utilizes positioning information from GPS receiver when GPS signal is available, otherwise DR is started to compensate GPS outage with the GPS output as the original point. The results showed that the error in east and north produced by the DR algorithm for a short time interval can be limited within an acceptable range.