Date of Award
9-2006
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
First Advisor
John F. Raquet, PhD
Abstract
The motivation of this research is to address the limitations of satellite-based navigation by fusing imaging and inertial systems. The research begins by rigorously describing the imaging and navigation problem and developing practical models of the sensors, then presenting a transformation technique to detect features within an image. Given a set of features, a statistical feature projection technique is developed which utilizes inertial measurements to predict vectors in the feature space between images. This coupling of the imaging and inertial sensors at a deep level is then used to aid the statistical feature matching function. The feature matches and inertial measurements are then used to estimate the navigation trajectory using an extended Kalman filter. After accomplishing a proper calibration, the image-aided inertial navigation algorithm is then tested using a combination of simulation and ground tests using both tactical and consumer- grade inertial sensors. While limitations of the Kalman filter are identified, the experimental results demonstrate a navigation performance improvement of at least two orders of magnitude over the respective inertial-only solutions.
AFIT Designator
AFIT-DS-ENG-06-09
DTIC Accession Number
ADA468382
Recommended Citation
Veth, Michael J., "Fusion of Imaging and Inertial Sensors for Navigation" (2006). Theses and Dissertations. 3338.
https://scholar.afit.edu/etd/3338