Date of Award

3-2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

John F. Raquet, PhD

Abstract

Current flight reference systems rely heavily on the Global Positioning System (GPS), causing susceptibility to GPS jamming. Additionally, an increasing number of tests involve jamming the GPS signal. A need exists to develop a system capable of GPS-level accuracy during these outages. One promising solution is a ground-based pseudolite system capable of delivering sub-centimeter level accuracy, yet operating at non-GPS frequencies. This thesis attempts to determine the unknown errors in the Locata system, one such pseudolite-based system, to achieve the accuracy required. The development of a measurement simulation tool along with a Kalman filter algorithm provides confirmation of filter performance as well as the ability to process real data measurements and evaluate simulated versus real data comparatively. The simulation tool creates various types of measurements with induced noise, tropospheric delays, pseudolite position errors, and tropospheric scale-factor errors. In turn, the Kalman filter resolves these errors, along with position, velocity, and acceleration for both simulated and real data measurements, enabling error analysis to pinpoint both expected and unexpected error sources.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GE-ENG-06-51

DTIC Accession Number

ADA450147

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