Unaided Inertial Navigation using Poly-Sensor Geometries for Enhanced Precision and Improved SWAP-C

An accurate inertial navigation system (INS) is a key aspect of many Department of Defense (DoD) weapon systems. These navigation systems can be made to be very accurate by using expensive, high precision inertial sensors and/or by the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) to correct for unavoidable errors that will arise and propagate in a traditional INS. However, recent advances by our adversaries and certain environmental factors can limit GPS signal availability/reliability thereby rendering several weapon systems imprecise and unusable. Therefore, it is crucial to develop future navigation systems for increasing duration, high precision missions that have limited, if any reliance on GPS (or other radio signals), but still have good SWAP-C metrics. To address this critical need, Spectral Energies (SE) will develop a poly-sensor INS. These sensors will be optimally distributed and oriented to exploit orthogonal sensing, provide maximum redundancy and employ advanced statistical manipulation for precision navigation. At the end of the proposed program, the team will have developed a demonstration system comprised of lower-grade sensors. The team will demonstrate that the assembly of lower grade sensor can meet the performance of the next higher grade when configured according to the proposed architectures. Approved for Public Release | 23-MDA-11401 (14 Mar 23)