An Inertial Navigation System (INS) is a navigation aid that uses a computer and motion sensors to continuously track the position, orientation, and velocity (direction and speed of movement) of a vehicle without the need for external references. Other terms used to refer to inertial navigation systems or closely related devices include inertial guidance system, inertial reference platform, and many other variations.
Overview
An inertial navigation system includes at least a computer and a platform or module containing accelerometers, gyroscopes, or other motion-sensing devices. The INS is initially provided with its position and velocity from another source (a human operator, a GPS satellite receiver, etc.), and thereafter computes its own updated position and velocity by integrating information received from the motion sensors. The advantage of an INS is that it requires no external references in order to determine its position, orientation, or velocity once it has been initialized.
An INS can detect a change in its geographic position (a move east or north, for example), a change in its velocity (speed and direction of movement), and a change in its orientation (rotation about an axis). It does this by measuring the linear and angular accelerations applied to the system. Since it requires no external reference (after initialization), it is immune to jamming and deception.
Inertial-navigation systems are used in many different types of vehicles, including aircraft, submarines, spacecraft, and guided missiles. However, their cost and complexity does place constraints on the environments in which they are practical for use.
Gyroscopes measure the angular velocity of the system in the inertial reference frame. By using the original orientation of the system in the inertial reference frame as the initial condition and integrating the angular velocity, the system's current orientation is known at all times. This can be thought of as the ability of a blindfolded passenger in a car to feel the car turn left and right or tilt up and down as the car ascends or descends hills. Based on this information alone, he knows what direction the car is facing but not how fast or slow it is moving, or whether it is sliding sideways.
Accelerometers measure the linear acceleration of the system in the inertial reference frame, but in directions that can only be measured relative to the moving system (since the accelerometers are fixed to the system and rotate with the system, but are not aware of their own orientation). This can be thought of as the ability of a blindfolded passenger in a car to feel himself pressed back into his seat as the vehicle accelerates forward or pulled forward as it slows down; and feel himself pressed down into his seat as the vehicle accelerates up a hill or rise up out of his seat as the car passes over the crest of a hill and begins to descend. Based on this information alone, he knows how the vehicle is moving relative to itself, that is, whether it is going forward, backward, left, right, up (toward the car's ceiling), or down (toward the car's floor) measured relative to the car, but not the direction relative to the Earth, since he did not know what direction the car was facing relative to the Earth when he felt the accelerations.
However, by tracking both the current angular velocity of the system and the current linear acceleration of the system measured relative to the moving system, it is possible to determine the linear acceleration of the system in the inertial reference frame. Performing integration on the inertial accelerations (using the original velocity as the initial conditions) using the correct kinematic equations yields the inertial velocities of the system, and integration again (using the original position as the initial condition) yields the inertial position. In our example, if the blindfolded passenger knew how the car was pointed and what its velocity was before he was blindfolded, and he is able to keep track of both how the car has turned and how it has accelerated and decelerated since, he can accurately know the current orientation, position, and velocity of the car at any time.
All inertial navigation systems suffer from integration drift: Small errors in the measurement of acceleration and angular velocity are integrated into progressively larger errors in velocity, which is compounded into still greater errors in position. This is a problem that is inherent in every open loop control system. The inaccuracy of a good-quality navigational system is normally fewer than 0.6 nautical miles per hour in position and on the order of tenths of a degree per hour in orientation.
Inertial navigation may also be used to supplement other navigation systems, providing a higher degree of accuracy than is possible with the use of any single navigation system. For example, if, in terrestrial use, the inertially tracked velocity is intermittently updated to zero by stopping, the position will remain precise for a much longer time, a so-called zero velocity update.
Control theory in general and Kalman filtering in particular provide a theoretical framework for combining information from various sensors. One of the most common alternative sensors is a satellite navigation radio, such as GPS. By properly combining the information from an INS and the GPS system, the errors in position and velocity are stable GPS/INS.
History
Inertial navigation systems were originally developed for rockets. American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard experimented with rudimentary gyroscopic systems. Dr. Goddard's systems were of great interest to contemporary German pioneers including Wernher von Braun. The systems entered more widespread use with the advent of spacecraft, guided missiles, and commercial airliners.
One example of a popular INS for commercial aircraft was the Delco Carousel, which provided partial automation of navigation in the days before complete flight management systems became commonplace. The Carousel allowed pilots to enter a series of waypoints, and then guided the aircraft from one waypoint to the next using an INS to determine aircraft position. Some aircraft were equipped with dual Carousels for safety.
Inertial navigation systems in detail
INSs have angular and linear accelerometers (for changes in position); some include a gyroscopic element (for maintaining an absolute angular reference).
Angular accelerometers measure how the vehicle is rotating in space. Generally, there's at least one sensor for each of the three axes: pitch (nose up and down), yaw (nose left and right) and roll (clockwise or counter-clockwise from the cockpit).
Linear accelerometers measure how the vehicle is moving in space. Since it can move in three axes (up & down, left & right, forward & back), there is a linear accelerometer for each axis.
A computer continually calculates the vehicle's current position. First, for each of the six degrees of freedom (x,y,z and θ x, θ y and θ z), it integrates the sensed amount of acceleration over time to figure the current velocity. Then it integrates the velocity to figure the current position.
Inertial guidance is difficult without computers. The desire to use inertial guidance in the Minuteman missile and Project Apollo drove early attempts to miniaturize computers.
Inertial guidance systems are now usually combined with satellite navigation systems through a digital filtering system. The inertial system provides short term data, while the satellite system corrects accumulated errors of the inertial system.
An inertial guidance system that will operate near the surface of the earth must incorporate Schuler tuning so that its platform will continue pointing towards the center of the earth as a vehicle moves from place to place.
Basic schemes
Gimballed gyrostabilized platforms
Some systems place the linear accelerometers on a gimbaled gyrostabilized platform. The gimbals are a set of three rings, each with a pair of bearings initially at right angles. They let the platform twist about any rotational axis (or, rather, they let the platform keep the same orientation while the vehicle rotates around it). There are two gyroscopes (usually) on the platform.
Two gyroscopes are used to cancel gyroscopic precession, the tendency of a gyroscope to twist at right angles to an input force. By mounting a pair of gyroscopes (of the same rotational inertia and spinning at the same speed) at right angles the precessions are cancelled, and the platform will resist twisting.
This system allows a vehicle's roll, pitch, and yaw angles to be measured directly at the bearings of the gimbals. Relatively simple electronic circuits can be used to add up the linear accelerations, because the directions of the linear accelerometers do not change.
The big disadvantage of this scheme is that it uses many expensive precision mechanical parts. It also has moving parts that can wear out or jam, and is vulnerable to gimbal lock. The primary guidance system of the Apollo spacecraft used a three-axis gyrostabilized platform, feeding data to the Apollo Guidance Computer. Maneuvers had to be carefully planned to avoid gimbal lock.
Fluid-suspended gyrostabilized platforms
Gimbal lock constrains maneuvring, and it would be beneficial to eliminate the slip rings and bearings of the gimbals. Therefore, some systems use fluid bearings or a flotation chamber to mount a gyrostabilized platform. These systems can have very high precisions (e.g. Advanced Inertial Reference Sphere). Like all gyrostabilized platforms, this system runs well with relatively slow, low-power computers.
The fluid bearings are pads with holes through which pressurized inert gas (such as Helium) or oil press against the spherical shell of the platform. The fluid bearings are very slippery, and the spherical platform can turn freely. There are usually four bearing pads, mounted in a tetrahedral arrangement to support the platform.
In premium systems, the angular sensors are usually specialized transformer coils made in a strip on a flexible printed circuit board. Several coil strips are mounted on great circles around the spherical shell of the gyrostabilized platform. Electronics outside the platform uses similar strip-shaped transformers to read the varying magnetic fields produced by the transformers wrapped around the spherical platform. Whenever a magnetic field changes shape, or moves, it will cut the wires of the coils on the external transformer strips. The cutting generates an electric current in the external strip-shaped coils, and electronics can measure that current to derive angles.
Cheap systems sometimes use bar codes to sense orientations, and use solar cells or a single transformer to power the platform. Some small missiles have powered the platform with light from a window or optic fibers to the motor. A research topic is to suspend the platform with pressure from exhaust gases. Data is returned to the outside world via the transformers, or sometimes LEDs communicating with external photodiodes.
Strapdown systems
Lightweight digital computers permit the system to eliminate the gimbals, creating "strapdown" systems, so called because their sensors are simply strapped to the vehicle. This reduces the cost, eliminates gimbal lock, removes the need for some calibrations, and increases the reliability by eliminating some of the moving parts. Angular rate sensors called "rate gyros" measure how the angular velocity of the vehicle changes.
A strapdown system has a dynamic measurement range several hundred times that required by a gimbaled system. That is, it must integrate the vehicle's attitude changes in pitch, roll and yaw, as well as gross movements. Gimballed systems could usually do well with update rates of 50 to 60 updates per second. However, strapdown systems normally update about 2000 times per second. The higher rate is needed to keep the maximum angular measurement within a practical range for real rate gyros: about 4 milliradians. Most rate gyros are now laser interferometers.
The data updating algorithms ("direction cosines" or "quaternions") involved are too complex to be accurately performed except by digital electronics. However, digital computers are now so inexpensive and fast that rate gyro systems can now be practically used and mass-produced. The Apollo lunar module used a strapdown system in its backup Abort Guidance System (AGS).
Strapdown systems are nowadays commonly used in commercial and tactical applications (arcraft, missiles, etc). However they are still not widespread in applications where superb accuracy is required (like submarine navigation or strategic ICBM guidance).
Motion-based alignment
The orientation of a gyroscope system can sometimes also be inferred simply from its position history (e.g., GPS). This is, in particular, the case with planes and cars, where the velocity vector usually implies the orientation of the vehicle body.
For example, Honeywell's Align in Motion[1] is an initialization process where the initialization occurs while the aircraft is moving, in the air or on the ground. This is accomplished using GPS and an inertial reasonableness test, thereby allowing commercial data integrity requirements to be met. This process has been FAA certified to recover pure INS performance equivalent to stationary align procedures for civilian flight times up to 18 hours. It avoids the need for gyroscope batteries on aircraft.
Vibrating gyros
Less-expensive navigation systems, intended for use in automobiles, may use a Vibrating structure gyroscope to detect changes in heading, and the odometer pickup to measure distance covered along the vehicle's track. This type of system is much less accurate than a higher-end INS, but it is adequate for the typical automobile application where GPS is the primary navigation system, and dead reckoning is only needed to fill gaps in GPS coverage when buildings or terrain block the satellite signals.
Hemispherical Resonator Gyros ("Brandy Snifter Gyros")
If a standing wave is induced in a globular resonant cavity (i.e. a brandy snifter), and then the snifter is tilted, the waves tend to continue oscillating in the same plane of movement - they don't fully tilt with the snifter. This trick is used to measure angles. Instead of brandy snifters, the system uses hollow globes machined from piezoelectric materials such as quartz. The electrodes to start and sense the waves are evaporated directly onto the quartz.
This system has almost no moving parts, and is very accurate. However it is still relatively expensive due to the cost of the precision ground and polished hollow quartz spheres.
Although successful systems were constructed, and an HRG's kinematics appear capable of greater accuracy, they never really caught on.[citation needed] Laser gyros were just more popular.[citation needed]
The classic system is the Delco 130Y Hemispherical Resonator Gyro, developed about 1986. See also [1] for a picture of an HRG resonator.
Quartz rate sensors
This system is usually integrated on a silicon chip. It has two mass-balanced quartz tuning forks, arranged "handle-to-handle" so forces cancel. Aluminum electrodes evaporated onto the forks and the underlying chip both drive and sense the motion. The system is both manufacturable and inexpensive. Since quartz is dimensionally stable, the system can be accurate.
As the forks are twisted about the axis of the handle, the vibration of the tines tends to continue in the same plane of motion. This motion has to be resisted by electrostatic forces from the electrodes under the tines. By measuring the difference in capacitance between the two tines of a fork, the system can determine the rate of angular motion.
Current state of the art non-military technology (2005) can build small solid state sensors that can measure human body movements. These devices have no moving parts, and weigh about 50 grams.
Solid state devices using the same physical principles are used to stabilize images taken with small cameras or camcorders. These can be extremely small (≈5 mm) and are built with MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) technologies.
MHD sensor
Sensors based on magnetohydrodynamic principles can be used to measure angular velocities and are described in "MHD sensor".
Laser gyros
Laser gyroscopes were supposed to eliminate the bearings in the gyroscopes, and thus the last bastion of precision machining and moving parts.
A laser gyro splits a beam of laser light into two beams in opposite directions through narrow tunnels in a closed optical circular path around the perimeter of a triangular block of temperature stable cervit glass block with reflecting mirrors placed in each corner. When the gyro is rotating at some angular rate, the distance traveled by each beam becomes different - the shorter path being opposite to the rotation. The phase-shift between the two beams can be measured by an interferometer, and is proportional to the rate of rotation (Sagnac effect).
In practice, at low rotation rates the output frequency can drop to zero after the result of "Back scattering" causing the beams to synchronise and lock together. This is known as a "lock-in, or laser-lock." The result is that there is no change in the interference pattern, and therefore no measurement change.
To unlock the counter-rotating light beams, laser gyros either have independent light paths for the two directions (usually in fiber optic gyros), or the laser gyro is mounted on a piezo-electric dither motor that rapidly vibrates the laser ring back and forth about its input axis through the lock-in region to decouple the light waves.
The shaker is the most accurate, because both light beams use exactly the same path. Thus laser gyros retain moving parts, but they do not move as far.
Pendular accelerometers
The basic, open-loop accelerometer consists of a mass attached to a spring. The mass is constrained to move only in-line with the spring. Acceleration causes deflection of the mass and the offset distance is measured. The acceleration is derived from the values of deflection distance, mass, and the spring constant. The system must also be damped to avoid oscillation. A closed-loop accelerometer achieves higher performance by using a feedback loop to cancel the deflection, thus keeping the mass nearly stationary. Whenever the mass deflects, the feedback loop causes an electric coil to apply an equally negative force on the mass, cancelling the motion. Acceleration is derived from the amount of negative force applied. Because the mass barely moves, the non-linearities of the spring and damping system are greatly reduced. In addition, this accelerometer provides for increased bandwidth past the natural frequency of the sensing element.
Both types of accelerometers have been manufactured as integrated micromachinery on silicon chips.
See also
- Inertial measurement unit
- Aircraft
- Spacecraft
- Attitude control
- Kalman filter
- Schuler tuning
- SIGI
- Dead reckoning
- SIGMA 30
- PIGA accelerometer
References
- ^ Doug Weed, et al.: GPS Align in Motion of Civilian Strapdown INS. Honeywell Commercial Aviation Products.
External links
- A history of inertial navigation systems
- Principle of operation of an accelerometer
- Overview of inertial instrument types
- An introduction to inertial navigation
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