POSITIONING AN AUTONOMOUS OFF-ROAD VEHICLE BY USING FUSED DGPS AND INERTIAL NAVIGATION

This paper deals with a positioning system for an autonomous vehicle A RSKA. Localization of the vehicle is based on fusion of internal dead reckoning navigation and periodic absolute position measurements. Fusi on is performed by using a Kalman-type filtering technique. A similar kind of approach is used in correcting the heading measurement. This i s important because the position error is mostly the result of the acc umulated heading error. The resulting accuracy depends on the accuracy of the dead reckoning estimation and on the accuracy and frequency of the absolute position measurement. As an absolute position measuremen t system, several alternatives can be used. Two different systems have been used with the vehicle: an external optical measurement device, t achymeter, and different combinations of DGPS. A real guarding applica tion will be discussed in the paper.