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AFIT Graduate Develops New Integrity Framework for Image-Based Navigation Systems

Posted Monday, August 09, 2010

 

When it comes to navigation, integrity is not just a core value. It is a measure of how well a computed navigation solution can be trusted. If we plug the address of a shopping center into our vehicle’s GPS unit and end up across the street from the desired location, it’s probably just a minor inconvenience. But let’s say we need to land a plane on a short runway surrounded by buildings or other obstructions…would missing our desired location by the width of a parking lot be only an inconvenience? It’s not enough to just have a navigation system computed location; there must also be integrity. Read the entire op-ed piece here.

Visualization of the alert zones defined by operating airspace

Research Impact

The navigation community has spent nearly two decades in development of GPS integrity algorithms and continues to refine methodologies and investigate new approaches. However, while larger issues of integrity are seemingly well-understood for many GPS applications, rigorous integrity quantification with respect to image-based navigation systems had yet to be addressed, until now. Recent AFIT graduate, Capt Craig D. Larson, has devoted the past three years developing an integrity framework for image-based navigation systems. The work presented in this dissertation is the first known investigation into image-based integrity, and was accomplished with the purpose of establishing a performance baseline for image-based navigation integrity and presenting the development and analysis in terms that could be easily understood by the navigation community. An assured navigation solution is of critical importance in navigation systems supporting safety-of-flight and/or safety-of-life operations, and thus, as image-based navigation becomes a viable augmentation or alternative to GNSS navigation, it is necessary to develop this baseline now. View the full dissertation here.

Reflections from Capt Craig Larson, PhD

“I am extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to advance my education at AFIT. The chance to serve the Air Force’s need to develop the theoretical and technical skill of it its engineers and scientists, while simultaneously pursuing a lifelong dream in earning a doctorate, is more than I could have hoped for. I am especially grateful for the chance to work as part of the Advanced Navigation Technology (ANT) Center. The ANT Center brings together a rare combination of faculty and staff with outstanding pedigrees in all facets of navigation, control systems, robotics, and signal processing. This team is focused not only on teaching the fundamentals of what has been done, but also on pushing the envelope of what can be done in advancing state-of-the-art technologies in these areas. From a student’s perspective, this forward thinking is very exciting. Perhaps even more exciting is the opportunity, in many cases, to take ideas off the drawing board and into direct application.”

 

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