A unified mathematical model for low-cost integrated navigation systems

Abstract

New solutions to the navigation problem related to low-cost integrated navigation systems are often proposed in the literature. Since these new solutions are compared with different mathematical models, one can not be sure of the relative improvements. In this work, a unified mathematical model (UMM) for low-cost integrated navigation systems is presented. As far as we know, there is a lack of an UMM for low-cost integrated navigation systems. Our UMM comprises a strapdown inertial navigation system with magnetometers, loosely-coupled to a GPS receiver. Since our UMM is intended to be used as a benchmark, it is based on both classical navigation equations and classical sensor models. To validate our UMM, we take real-world data sets from three MEMS inertial measurement units and a GPS receiver, and process them using our UMM. We find that obtained RMS errors for the three integrated systems are coherent with the quality of corresponding sensors, which confirms the validity of our UMM.