US 2003/0154049 A1 · Attitude angle detecting apparatus

Abstract

An attitude angle detecting apparatus receives radio waves transmitted from a plurality of position-fixing satellites with multiple antennas located at specific positions of a mobile unit, determines relative positions of the antennas and detects the heading and attitude of the mobile unit by determining carrier phase ambiguities quickly and accurately. When it is needed to redetermine integer ambiguities after recovery from an interruption of the radio waves from the position-fixing satellites or as a result of a change in combination of the position-fixing satellites, for example, the attitude angle detecting apparatus redetermines the integer ambiguities by using attitude angles and an attitude angle error covariance obtained from previous observation. This enables the attitude angle detecting apparatus to uninterruptedly obtain information on the heading and attitude of the mobile unit.

Claims7

Dependent claims

An attitude angle detecting apparatus which receives radio waves from a plurality of position-fixing satellites by means of at least two antennas mounted on a mobile unit, one of the antennas being used as a reference antenna, determines the relative position of the antenna other than the reference antenna with respect to the reference antenna, and determines the heading and attitude of the mobile unit from said relative position of the antenna, said attitude angle detecting apparatus comprising:

means for observing a single phase difference or a double phase difference and determining an integer ambiguity from the single or double phase difference;
means for calculating said relative position from the phase difference of which integer ambiguity has been determined;
means for calculating attitude angles of the mobile unit and an error covariance of the attitude angles;
and
integer ambiguity redetermination means for calculating at least one integer ambiguity candidate from the single phase difference for each of the position-fixing satellites or from the double phase difference for each pair of the position-fixing satellites based on the attitude angles and the error covariance of the attitude angles and redetermining the integer ambiguity from the integer ambiguity candidate.

2 more elements

means for observing a single phase difference or a double phase difference and determining an integer ambiguity from the single or double phase difference;
means for calculating said relative position from the phase difference of which integer ambiguity has been determined;
means for calculating attitude angles of the mobile unit and an error covariance of the attitude angles and correcting the error covariance of the attitude angles;
and
integer ambiguity redetermination means for calculating at least one integer ambiguity candidate from the single phase difference for each of the position-fixing satellites or from the double phase difference for each pair of the position-fixing satellites based on the attitude angles and the corrected error covariance of the attitude angles and redetermining the integer ambiguity from the integer ambiguity candidate.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Attitude angle detecting apparatus

Life of this patent

Attitude angle detecting apparatus

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims7