Hardware structure for an INS/GPS integrated navigator

Abstract

The paper exposes the design, experimental development and testing of a hardware structure that integrates the two widely used concepts in air navigation, INS and GPS. Its detection components are an inertial module and a satellite positioning module, the data provided by them being fused with a microcontroller. The satellite positioning module is a UBLOX NEO-6M, while the inertial module, which is in fact an inertial measurement unit, includes three analogue miniaturized inertial sensors: two bi-axial analogue gyros, LPY510AL and LPR510AL, and a three-axial analogue accelerometer, MMA7361L. Since it was desired the development of the navigation application in Matlab-Simulink, to integrate the two modules it was chosen a dsPIC33EP512MU810 microcontroller, which is found in the MPLAB Device Blocks for Simulink library's microcontroller list. The first tests were performed in the laboratory conditions, with the system in various fixed positions, while the dynamic testing of the system was carried out by boarding it on a testing car, which played also the role of monitored vehicle. Simultaneously with the acquisition of experimental data, a real-time monitoring of the vehicle was made by placing its position on a map.

Keywords

• integrated navigation
• ins
• gps
• mems-imu
• hardware structure