Incorporating INS with Carrier-Phase Differential GPS for Automatic Steering Control of a Farm Tractor

This paper evaluates the use of a low cost inertial navigation system (INS) combined with Carrier-Phase Differential GPS (DGPS), to provide continuous position and attitude estimation for the control of a farm tractor. The INS system is used for dead-reckoning navigation to control the vehicle through short GPS outages. An Extended Kalman filter combines INS and Doppler radar measurements with cm-level Carrier-Phase Differential GPS measurements for continuous position and attitude estimation of the tractor. Results are given which verify the ability of the INS system to provide a heading accuracy within ±0.6° for control of the tractor. Additionally it is shown that the dead-reckoning system can provide position and attitude estimation to control the tractor to within ±0.3 meters through a short GPS outage.