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Single Platform Relative Positioning for Sensor Stabilization

Dickman, Jeff

Abstract Details

2008, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Electrical Engineering (Engineering and Technology).

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensors such as radio detecting and ranging, laser detecting and ranging, electro-optic / infra-red, and other remote sensing activities are becoming increasingly dependent on their position and orientation in time and space. The higher dynamics of flight and the increased sensor requirements have led to the need for sensor stabilization by direct motion measurement. A stabilization system based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) can provide good performance, but high frequency ISR sensor pointing applications have led to the need for additional measurement bandwidth, accuracy, and robustness. Two significant issues will be addressed in this dissertation to improve the stabilization system robustness and accuracy at the mm level: GPS Carrier Phase measurement noise using inertial measurements and carrier phase multipath. Higher bandwidth requirements (i.e., hundreds of Hz) will be addressed with the incorporation of a high-rate inertial measurement unit. All concepts developed in this dissertation will be illustrated using real sensor data from either static aircraft tests on the tarmac or dynamic flight tests.

The work to be described in this document will expand the state-of-the-art in the area of navigation sensor noise reduction while preserving high measurement bandwidth. Coupling GPS and inertial measurements has demonstrated the required improvements in similar applications, but an approach was sought which was tailored for the stabilization application. This dissertation will examine both optimal and non-optimal coupling of navigation sensors to form optimized high-accuracy single-platform relative position measurements with the intent to coherently stabilize ISR sensors.

This dissertation also examines GPS carrier phase multipath as an error contributor in the ground calibration of the ISR sensor antenna baseline. Several indicators will be examined as a means to exclude satellites from the calibration data. Also, the narrowlane measurement combination technique will be used as a means to mitigate the remaining carrier phase multipath in the baseline solution.

The contributions of this work include a framework for the single-platform stabilization problem, sensor integration and alignment techniques for single-platform baseline stabilization, an inertial synthesized baseline technique for smoothing noise in the GPS measurements, multipath considerations pertaining to the ground-calibration of sensors, and a demonstration of the utility of the narrow-lane linear combination for dual frequency GPS noise and multipath reduction.

Chris G. Bartone, PhD (Advisor)
219 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Dickman, J. (2008). Single Platform Relative Positioning for Sensor Stabilization [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1210187565

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Dickman, Jeff. Single Platform Relative Positioning for Sensor Stabilization. 2008. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1210187565.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Dickman, Jeff. "Single Platform Relative Positioning for Sensor Stabilization." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1210187565

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)