APPLICATIONS OF GPS TO GROUND TARGET CONTROL

THE USE OF NAVIGATION INFORMATION FROM THE GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM, PERHAPS IN COMBINATION WITH INERTIAL SENSORS, OFFERS THE POSSIBILITY OF VERY HIGH ACCURACY NAVIGATION SOLUTIONS. THIS EFFORT WILL EXAMINE SEVERAL CANDIDATE NAVIGATION SYSTEMS, ALL INVOLVING GPS, TO DETERMINE IF SUCH SYSTEMS COULD BE UTILIZED FOR EITHER MANUAL OR REMOTE CONTROL OF TARGET VEHICLES. A REQUIREMENT OF ROUGHLY TWO METERS FOR POSITION REPEATABILITY HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED. TAU WILL MAKE USE OF AN EXISTING GROUND VEHICLE NAVIGATION SIMULATION IN EVALUATING THE CANDIDATE SYSTEMS; THIS SIMULATION INCLUDES REALISTIC VEHICLE AND TERRAIN MODELS, AND ERROR MODELS FOR GPS, AND OTHER POSSIBLE VEHICLE SENSORS, INCLUDING AN ODOMETER, FULL TWO DIMENSIONAL INERTIAL SYSTEMS, AND INCLINOMETERS. IN ADDITION TO ACCURACY, NAVIGATION SENSOR COST, WEIGHT,SIZE AND COMMERCIAL AVAILABILITY WILL BE CONSIDERED. THE FEASIBILITY/PRACTICALITY OF USING THE PROPOSED NAVIGATION SYSTEM FOR GROUND TARGET CONTROL WILL BE EVALUATING BY ADDRESSING ONBOARD COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS, THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF VEHICLES WHICH COULD BE CONTROLLED, THE REQUIRED CONTROL RATES, AND THE COMMUNICATION/DATA LINK REQUIREMENTS, ESPECIALLY FOR TELEOPERATED VEHICLES.