Flight test and simulation results of an integrated dual airborne laser scanner and inertial navigator for UAV applications

This paper discusses an integrated dual airborne laser scanner (DALS)/inertial (INS) navigator for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). The discussed navigator enables UAV operations over environments for which no a priori terrain data is available and trajectories for which loop closure is not a possibility. The system was designed, implemented and, in the absence of a UAV platform with enough capacity to carry the airborne laser scanner systems, flight tested onboard Ohio University's DC-3 aircraft over Athens, Ohio, USA. The proposed DALS/INS systems can be used as an alternative means of navigation in GPS-denied and unknown terrain environments. In these environments the usual navigation solution based on the integration of GPS and INS is no longer available. This paper addresses both a feedforward and a feedback coupled implementation of DALS/INS. Furthermore, both simulation results and actual DC-3 flight test results are shown.