Highly Accurate GPS-Denied PNT Using Direct Doppler Lidar Measurements

2024-01-4065

09/16/2024

Features
Event
2024 NDIA Michigan Chapter Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium
Authors Abstract
Content
On the modern battlefield, Global Positioning System (GPS) can be unreliable in contested environments due to jamming or signal loss. Existing alternatives like high-accuracy inertial navigation systems (INS) are prone to higher drifts over distances with platform dependent performance, while solutions like Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO) and Lidar-Inertial Odometry (LIO) lack accuracy and robustness on challenging terrain. We present a novel Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) solution that overcomes these limitations. It integrates inertial measurements from an IMU and doppler measurements from a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) LiDAR within a non-linear filtering framework to robustly measure motion states that achieve up to 0.1% Cross Track Error (CTE) rate in real-time. Furthermore, unlike solutions reliant on wheel speed sensors, our method requires no platform-specific information and is resilient to environmental factors such as wheel-slip, dynamic lighting, and weather conditions. This makes it highly portable, scalable, dependable, and readily deployable on a diverse set of platforms like ground vehicles, low-altitude drones, and even dismounted soldiers. Compared to traditional Time-of-Flight (ToF) LiDAR systems that operate in the Near Infrared (NIR) spectrum, FMCW LiDARs offer lower detectability due to their operation at lower peak power and within the Short-wave Infrared (SWIR) spectrum. In the face of increasing GPS disruptions and the proliferation of autonomy in military applications, our method provides a dependable solution for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) in a broad variety of challenging scenarios.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2024-01-4065
Pages
12
Citation
Templeton, J., Gill, J., Jakhotia, A., and Pazhayampallil, J., "Highly Accurate GPS-Denied PNT Using Direct Doppler Lidar Measurements," SAE Technical Paper 2024-01-4065, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4271/2024-01-4065.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Sep 16
Product Code
2024-01-4065
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English