Monolithic Fully Integrated Optic Inertial Navigation System

The GPS is an affordable and accurate means of guiding military and civilian aircraft. However, at times the GPS signal becomes blocked or degraded due to loss of satellite lock or poor viewing angle. It is necessary to back it up with inertial navigation. However, there is no INS system which is accurate enough and inexpensive enough to do the job. A completely monolithic fully integrated INS is proposed which has navigational grade performance yet can be micromachined to provide all the inertial measurements, by virtue of the materials used, the fabrication processes adopted, and the transduction technique. This INS will be interfaced with GPS. The two systems will be uncoupled initially. The Kalman filter will include 17 states. In Phase II the coupling will be tightened to include feedback states to the GPS first and then to the INS to model its error states. It has the capability of aligning the INS in flight and of compensating for its drift in real time.