Autonomous error bounding of position estimates from GPS and Galileo

In safety-of-life applications of satellite-based navigation, such as the guided approach and landing of an aircraft, the most important question is whether the navigation error is tolerable. Although differentially corrected GPS is accurate enough for the task most of the time, anomalous measurement errors can create situations where the navigation error is intolerably large. Detection of such situations is referred to as integrity monitoring. Due to the non:stationary nature of the error sources, it is impossible to predetermine an adequate error-bound with the required confidence. Since the errors at the airplane can be different from the errors at reference stations, integrity can't be assured by ground monitoring. It is therefore necessary for the receiver on the airplane to autonomously assess the integrity of the position estimate in real-time. In the presence of multiple errors it is possible for a set of measurements to remain self-consistent despite containing errors. This is the primary reason why GPS has been unable to provide adequate integrity for aircraft approach. When the Galileo system become operational, there will be many more independent measurements. The more measurements that are available, the more unlikely it becomes that the errors happen to be self-consistent by chance. This thesis will quantify this relationship.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Temple, Thomas J. (Thomas John)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jonathan P. How.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37884

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37884