Inertial navigation system aided by aircraft dynamics

In this work the possibility of using the model of aircraft dynamics as a means for aiding an inertial navigation system is studied. The method is of particular interest for low-grade inertial navigating system (INS). The aiding formulation is introduced, its corresponding mathematical model is derived and used in the design of an appropriate extended Kalman filter. Sensitivity analysis of the errors caused by perturbations in the parameters of the aircraft dynamics demonstrates the robustness of the scheme. The importance of maneuvers for observability is also presented. Simulations show that the use of aircraft dynamics for aiding a low-grade inertial navigation system yields a navigation system whose performance is considerably better than that of the pure INS. This improvement is made possible by the fact that the errors in the aircraft dynamics model are observable when performing appropriate calibration maneuvers.