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Navigation, Guidance, Control and Dynamics

Air Force Institute of Technology

Theses and Dissertations

2007

#antcenter

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Real-Time Gps-Alternative Navigation Using Commodity Hardware, Jordon L. Fletcher Jun 2007

Real-Time Gps-Alternative Navigation Using Commodity Hardware, Jordon L. Fletcher

Theses and Dissertations

Modern navigation systems can use the Global Positioning System (GPS) to accurately determine position with precision in some cases bordering on millimeters. Unfortunately, GPS technology is susceptible to jamming, interception, and unavailability indoors or underground. There are several navigation techniques that can be used to navigate during times of GPS unavailability, but there are very few that result in GPS-level precision. One method of achieving high precision navigation without GPS is to fuse data obtained from multiple sensors. This thesis explores the fusion of imaging and inertial sensors and implements them in a real-time system that mimics human navigation. In …


Development Of An Experimental Platform For Testing Autonomous Uav Guidance And Control Algorithms, Justin R. Rufa Mar 2007

Development Of An Experimental Platform For Testing Autonomous Uav Guidance And Control Algorithms, Justin R. Rufa

Theses and Dissertations

With the United States' push towards using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for more military missions, wide area search theory is being researched to determine the viability of multiple vehicle autonomous searches over the battle area. Previous work includes theoretical development of detection and attack probabilities while taking into account known enemy presence within the search environment. Simulations have been able to transform these theories into code to predict the UAV performance against known numbers of true and false targets. The next step to transitioning these autonomous search algorithms to an operational environment is the experimental testing of these theories through …


Optimal Wind Corrected Flight Path Planning For Autonomous Micro Air Vehicles, Michael D. Zollars Mar 2007

Optimal Wind Corrected Flight Path Planning For Autonomous Micro Air Vehicles, Michael D. Zollars

Theses and Dissertations

This research effort focuses on determining the optimal flight path required to put a micro air vehicle's (MAVs) fixed sensor on a target in the presence of a constant wind. Autonomous flight is quickly becoming the future of air power and over the past several years, the size and weight of autonomous vehicles has decreased dramatically. As these vehicles were implemented into the field, it was quickly discovered that their flight paths are severely altered by wind. However, since the size of the vehicle does not allow for a gimbaled camera, only a slight perturbation to the attitude of the …