Propagation and System Accuracy Impact of Major Sensor Errors on a Strapdown Aircraft Navigator

A strapdown system is considered as an unaided inertial navigator aboard an aircraft. Presented here are simulation results detailing the propagation of navigation errors (in nautical miles) due to strapdown sensor errors for four trajectories. They indicate the type of performance that can be expected from a strapdown system utilizing good "off the shelf" gyros and accelerometers, and dramatically illustrate the improvements necessary in these components to obtain navigation performance comparable to that available from a good gimballed inertial system. The total navigation error for each trajectory is broken down to show the contribution from each of the various error sources. This breakdown quickly reveals which are the critical error sources for a given trajectory class, and also points up the relationship that exists between each individual error source, aircraft maneuvers, and the resulting navigation error. Several of the error mechanisms are discussed at length and a set of linearized differential equations which can be used to analyze error propagations is presented. These results should be of particular interest to the system designer who is faced with the problem of specifying the sensor error parameters necessary to meet mission performance requirements. With an analysis similar to the one presented here, but structured around his own expected mission trajectories, the designer should be able to confidently predict system accuracies and intelligently perform tradeoffs on the critical system parameters.