Position and Velocity Navigation Systems for Unmanned Vehicles

This brief presents a new observer synthesis methodology for a class of kinematic systems with application to the estimation of linear motion quantities of mobile platforms (position and linear velocity), in three dimensions, that: 1) presents globally exponentially stable (GES) error dynamics, which are also input-to-state stable (ISS) with respect to angular quantities; 2) minimizes the L ₂ induced norm from a generalized disturbance input to a performance variable; 3) provides a systematic design procedure, based upon robust control theory results, that allows for the use of frequency weights to shape the dynamic response of the observer. A practical application is presented, in the field of ocean robotics, that demonstrates the potential and usefulness of the proposed design methodology and simulation results are included that illustrate the observer achievable performance in the presence of both extreme environmental disturbances and realistic sensors' noise.