TOYON RESEARCH CORPORATION PROPOSES TO DEVELOP A LOW-COST NAVIGATION SYSTEM FOR UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES (U…

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TOYON RESEARCH CORPORATION PROPOSES TO DEVELOP A LOW-COST NAVIGATION SYSTEM FOR UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES (UAVS) THAT ACHIEVES AN ATTITUDE ACCURACY OF BETTER THAN 0.1 DEGREES USING COMMERCIAL-GRADE GYROSCOPES AND ACCELEROMETERS. AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE IMPROVEMENT IN NAVIGATION PERFORMANCE WILL BE ACHIEVED BY FUSING LOW-COST INERTIAL SENSOR MEASUREMENTS WITH ATTITUDE AND POSITION MEASUREMENTS FROM A SMALL-APERTURE GPS-BASED ATTITUDE (GPS/A) SENSOR. THE MINIATURE INTEGRATED DIRECTION-FINDING ATTITUDE-DETERMINING ANTI-JAM SYSTEM (MIDAAS(TM)) OBTAINS POSITION, VELOCITY, ATTITUDE, AND TIME (PVAT) MEASUREMENTS DIRECTLY FROM GPS SIGNALS. MIDAAS EMPLOYS AN INNOVATIVE SMALL SINGLE-APERTURE ANTENNA TO COMPUTE FULL 3-D ATTITUDE (ROLL, PITCH AND YAW) USING ONLY TWO RF CHANNELS, LEADING TO A SMALLER, SIMPLER, LOWER-COST GPS/A RECEIVER SYSTEM. A STAND-ALONE (GYRO-LESS) MIDAAS UNIT CAN ALSO BE USED TO PROVIDE ATTITUDE INFORMATION IN ADDITION TO POSITION AND VELOCITY ON VERY SMALL PLATFORMS. A UNIQUE ULTRA-TIGHTLY COUPLED (UTC) NAVIGATION ARCHITECTURE MAKES THE SYSTEM INHERENTLY MORE ROBUST TO INTERFERENCE AND SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVES THE ATTITUDE ESTIMATE. IN ADDITION, MIDAAS PROVIDES ACTIVE ANTI-JAM PROTECTION AND MULTIPATH MITIGATION THEREBY FURTHER IMPROVING THE SYSTEM INTEGRITY AND ROBUSTNESS. THE SYSTEM PERFORMANCE WILL BE DEMONSTRATED DURING THE PHASE I EFFORT WITH DATA OBTAINED DURING SEVERAL FLIGHT TESTS, AND WILL BE COMPARED WITH A HIGHER-ACCURACY, MORE EXPENSIVE GPS/IMU SYSTEM.