An Augmented Gimballess Inertial Navigation System

A general mechanization in vehicular coordinates of a Gimballess Inertial System for space navigation is considered. The system is both nonlinear and multiloop with coupling between the loops. Linearized system error equations for the position errors are obtained and they are found to be unstable. An error damping method is proposed and it is shown that damping can be achieved. The method utilizes appropriate damping circuits and auxiliary information obtained by means of a sun tracker.