An apparatus for controlling the formation flight of a trailing aircraft relative to a vortex generated by a leading aircraft includes a position module, peak-seeking module, limiter module, and control module. The position module is configured to determine a position of the vortex relative to the trailing aircraft. The peak-seeking module is configured to determine a desired position of the trailing aircraft for providing desired vortex-induced aerodynamic benefits based on the position of the vortex relative to the trailing aircraft and a mapping function of an individual performance metric. The limiter module is configured to modify the desired position of the trailing aircraft to avoid unintended crossings of the trailing aircraft into the vortex. Finally, the control module is configured to control flight of the trailing aircraft based on one of the desired position of the trailing aircraft and modified desired position of the trailing aircraft.

Formation flight control

A measurement system having a miniature, wireless inertial measurement unit (IMU) disposed within or on a moving object, such as a ball or other member, to calculate the kinematics of the moving object.

Pitcher training apparatus and method using a ball with an embedded inertial measurement unit

The invention belongs to the technical field of navigation, and concretely relates to an inertial navigation/mileometer autonomous integrated navigation method. The method comprises the following steps: 1, initially aligning an inertial navigation system, and initializing parameters of a Kalman filter; 2, carrying out inertial navigation calculation to obtain a discrete state transfer matrix and a measurement matrix; 3, calculating based on the summation measurement of displacement errors to obtain a filtering observation; 4, carrying out mileometer information fault detection; 5, carrying out Kalman filtering; and 6, correcting. The method solves technical problems of too large mileometer quantification noise and reduced combination navigation precision of present inertial navigation/mileometer integrated navigation methods; and the method which adopts a displacement integration coupling based inertial navigation/mileometer integrated navigation strategy abandons a quantization noise introduced in the traditional methods utilizing a speed, which is obtained by performing calculation on a displacement, as an observation, and substantially improves the reliability of an integrated navigation system.

Inertial navigation/mileometer autonomous integrated navigation method

An acceleration-based mobile asset data recorder and transmitter equipped with a wireless processing unit, an event recorder, a digital video recorder, a fuel level sensor, and an inertial navigation sensor board. The inertial navigation sensor board includes a 3-axis gyroscope, a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis magnetometer, and a microcontroller. The data recorder and transmitter allows for automatic orientation, automatic compass calibration, fuel compensation with pitch and roll, emergency brake application with impact detection, rough operating condition detection, engine running detection, and inertial navigation of a mobile asset. Users can use the normal operation of their mobile assets to locate and alert, in real-time, areas where their assets are encountering rough operating environments, to provide for quicker emergency response, and to validate the effectiveness of repairs and rerouting.

Mobile asset data recorder and transmitter

A posture angle processing apparatus includes a magnetic sensor, a gravitational acceleration sensor, a position information acquisition device, and a dip angle database device wherein a correlation of the absolute location and a geomagnetic dip angle at the corresponding point is stored. Based on the absolute location of the current point, a dip angle estimation and determination device reads the geomagnetic dip angle at the current point, calculates an angle formed by a horizontal plane and the magnetic vector, compares the angle formed by the magnetic vector and the horizontal plane with the geomagnetic dip angle of the current point, and outputs either a true signal or a false signal depending on the error between the angle and the geomagnetic dip angle.

Attitude angle processor and attitude angle processing method

Measurement of a spatial velocity vector in order to make determination of a geographical position possible. A spatial velocity meter includes an inertial measurement unit, a direction-sensing module and a velocity processor. The inertial measurement unit registers acceleration parameters and angular velocity parameters in three dimensions. The direction-sensing module registers a natural reference signal. The velocity processor receives the acceleration parameters, the angular velocity parameters and the natural reference signal, and based thereon, generates the spatial velocity vector.

Autonomous velocity estimation and navigation

The present invention relates to autonomous navigation of crafts and vehicles. A proposed apparatus (200) that generates estimated navigation data (S nav ) includes an INS (210), a vehicle modeling unit (220) and an error estimation unit (250). The INS (210) registers acceleration and angular velocity parameters in respect of a body-fixed coordinate system (b) associated with the vehicle, and produces a first estimated acceleration vector (a m ) for the vehicle. The vehicle modeling unit (220) receives the estimated navigation data (S nav ) and a model vector (M ) describing the vehicle dynamics of the vehicle. By applying the model vector (M ) and the estimated navigation data (S nav ) to at least one adaptive model (M t ,M a ), the vehicle modeling unit (220) produces a second estimated acceleration vector (a e ) for the vehicle. The error estimation unit (250) produces first and second navigation error signals (e INS ,e mod ) based on the first and second estimated acceleration vectors (a m ,a e ), feeds back the first navigation error signal (e INS ) to the inertial measurement system (210) and feeds back the second navigation error signal (e mod ) to the vehicle modeling unit (220) for adjusting the estimated navigation data (S nav ) and the at least one adaptive model (M t ,M a ), respectively.

Anders Hagstedt

Papers

Autonomous velocity estimation and navigation

Inertial- and vehicle dynamics based autonomous navigation

Trägheits- und fahrzeugdynamik basierte autonome navigation