Systems and methods for ground based navigation
AssigneePsionic Inc
InventorsStephen Parker Sandford, Diego Fernando Pierrottet
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatus for providing self-contained guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) functions for a vehicle moving through an environment on or near the ground, in the air or in space without externally provided information are disclosed. More particularly, one embodiment of the present invention includes a Heading Sensor (36), an Absolute Location Sensor (38), a timer (40), a Range Doppler Processor (42), a Navigation Reference Sensor (44), an Area Range and a Velocity Sensor (46) which provide enhanced navigation information about a universal reference frame (22) and one or more targets (20).
Claims20
A self-contained system for ground based navigation, the system comprising:
- a velocity sensor comprising:
- a beam director, the beam director configured to direct one or more emitted signals from the self-contained system toward a reference point relative to ground over which a vehicle is traveling and receive one or more return signals reflected from the reference point based at least one on the one or more emitted signals;
- one or more processors coupled with memory to:
- determine, based on the one or more emitted signals and the one or more return signals, one or more velocity vectors of the vehicle relative to the reference point, each of the one or more velocity vectors comprising a magnitude of velocity and a direction of travel of the vehicle along a line of sight of the one or more emitted signals relative to the vehicle;
- determine a first location of the vehicle using a first velocity vector of the one or more velocity vectors;
- and
- determine a second location of the vehicle using the first location and a second velocity vector of the one or more velocity vectors.
A velocity sensor for ground-based navigation, the velocity sensor comprising:
- a beam director configured to direct one or more emitted signals toward a reference point relative to ground over which a vehicle is traveling and to receive one or more return signals reflected from the reference point based at least in part on the one or more emitted signals;
- one or more processors coupled with memory and configured to:
- determine, based on the one or more emitted signals and the one or more return signals, a velocity vector of the vehicle relative to the reference point, the velocity vector comprising a magnitude of velocity and a direction of travel of the vehicle along a line of sight of the one or more emitted signals relative to the vehicle;
- and
- determine a location of the vehicle using the velocity vector.
A computer-implemented method for ground-based navigation of a vehicle, the method comprising:
- emitting, by a velocity sensor, one or more signals toward a reference point relative to ground over which the vehicle is traveling;
- receiving, by the velocity sensor, one or more return signals reflected from the reference point based at least in part on the one or more emitted signals;
- determining, by one or more processors coupled with memory, based on the one or more emitted signals and the one or more return signals, a velocity vector of the vehicle relative to the reference point, the velocity vector comprising a magnitude of velocity and a direction of travel of the vehicle along a line of sight of the one or more emitted signals relative to the vehicle;
- determining, by the one or more processors, a first location of the vehicle using the velocity vector;
- determining, by the one or more processors, a second location of the vehicle using the first location and a subsequent velocity vector.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.