Hybrid procedure strategy for vehicle localization system based on additional on-board devices

This paper presents an estimation strategy that provides a good localization and a perfect measurement of the distance run by a public transport vehicle. To this aim, the vehicle is equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS), an odometer, to measure the vehicle velocity, and a gyrometer, to measure the yaw velocity. A model based hybrid procedure has been proposed, based on the GPS signal reliability, guaranteeing robustness for temporary loss of satellite signal. In particular the algorithm switches among a Kalman filter strategy, if the GPS is available, and an open loop model based estimation, if it is not available. The algorithm has been tested both in simulation and with experimental data furnished by Centro Ricerche FIAT.