Steering Characteristics of an Autonomous Tractor with Variable Distances to the Waypoint

Abstract

Due to inaccurate safe navigation estimates, maritime accidents have been occurring consistently. In order to solve this, the precise positioning technology using carrier phase information is used, but due to high buildings near inland waterways or inclination, satellite signals might become weak or blocked for some time. Under this weak signal environment for some time, the GPS raw measurements become less accurate so that it is difficult to search and maintain the integer ambiguity of carrier phase. In this paper, a method to generate code and carrier phase measurements under this environment and maintain resilient navigation is proposed. In the weak signal environment, the position of the receiver is estimated using an inertial sensor, and with this information, the distance between the satellite and the receiver is calculated to generate code measurements using IGS product and model. And, the carrier phase measurements are generated based on the statistics for generating fractional phase. In order to verify the performance of the proposed method, the proposed method was compared for a fixed blocked time. It was confirmed that in case of a weak or blocked satellite signals for 1 to 5 minutes, the proposed method showed more improved results than the inertial navigation only, maintaining stable positioning accuracy within 1 m.