Landmark based position and orientation method with tilt compensation for missile launcher

A method to obtain the position and orientation of a missile launcher is proposed in this paper. Firstly, three landmarks with known position are deployed to surround the launching site. Then, with the help of a camera mounted on top of the launcher, the azimuth and pitch of those landmarks are measured when a missile is going to be launched. Finally, the azimuth and tilt of the missile launcher are estimated in an alternative way. The azimuth is estimated by a planar algorithm in the planar coordinate whose tilt is estimated in the previous iteration. The tilt is obtained by linearization technique, and the solution of the system of linear equations is simplified with the results of the planar algorithm. The proposed algorithm does not require an initial value and has no multiple solution ambiguity, which exists in other algorithms. The results of the simulations and experiments show that the tilt compensation improves the position and orientation accuracy.