THEORETICAL CONCEPTS OF NEW AIRBORNE NAVIGATION SYSTEMS

Virtually all of man' s navigation history has been limited to primitive methods. The last several decades have seen many-new techniques and sophistications added to the science. The two basic classes of systems, self-contained and externally-referenced, are reviewed and their present limitations defined. A new hybrid class of system is defined, and its possible advantages described. The SCAN (Self-Correcting Automatic Navigator) system and its philosophy of statistical data filtering is given as an example of hybrid instrumentation.