Inertial navigation position and orientation estimation with occasional Galileo satellite position fixes and stereo camera measurements

In this paper an adaptive unscented Kalman filter based mixing filter is used to integrate kinematic satellite aided inertial navigation system with vision based measurements of five representative points on a runway in a modern receiver that incorporates carrier phase smoothing and ambiguity resolution. Using high resolution multiple stereo camera based measurements of five points on the runway, in addition to a set of typical pseudo-range estimates that can be obtained from a satellite navigation system such GPS or GNSS equipped with a carrier phase receiver, the feasibility of generating high precision estimates of the typical outputs from an inertial navigation system is demonstrated. The methodology may be developed as a stand-alone system or employed in conjunction with a traditional strapped down inertial navigation systems for purposes of initial alignment. Moreover the feasibility of employing adaptive mixing was explored as it facilitates the possibility of using the system for developing a vision based automatic landing controller.