Multi-sensor vehicle component orientation measurement

A method of operating an autonomous vehicle (AV), the method comprising:

• receiving, from a first RTK GPS receiver with two or more antennas of a vehicle body, first heading information;
• receiving, from a second RTK GPS receiver with two or more antennas of a vehicle component, second heading information, wherein the vehicle component is coupled to the vehicle body via a pivoting joint;
• determining a rotation of the vehicle component around the pivoting joint relative to the vehicle body using an angular difference between the first heading and the second heading;
• and
• autonomously performing a vehicle movement based on the determined rotation.

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising stored instructions, the instructions when executed by the processor cause to processor to perform operations comprising:
• receiving, from a first RTK GPS receiver comprising two or more antennas of a vehicle body, first heading information;
• receiving, from a second RTK GPS receiver comprising two or more antennas of a vehicle component, second heading information, wherein the vehicle component is coupled to the vehicle body via a pivoting joint;
• determining a rotation of the vehicle component around the pivoting joint relative to the vehicle body using the first heading information and the second heading information;
• and
• autonomously performing a vehicle movement based on the determined rotation.

An autonomous vehicle (AV), comprising:

• a vehicle body comprising a first real-time kinematic positioning (RTK) global positioning system (GPS) receiver with two or more antennas;
• a vehicle component comprising a second RTK GPS receiver with two or more antennas, the vehicle body and the vehicle component coupled via a prismatic joint;
• and
• a controller configured to:
• access first heading information received from the first RTK GPS receiver with two or more antennas and second heading information received from the second RTK GPS receiver with two or more antennas;
• determine a rotation of the vehicle component around the pivoting joint relative to the vehicle body using an angular difference between the first heading information and the second heading information and autonomously perform a vehicle movement based on the determined rotation.