PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE EXPERIMENTAL NAVIGATION SYSTEM TAG
M. Wis, L. Samsó, E. Aigner, I. Colomina
Institute of Geomatics
Campus de Castelldefels
Av. Del Canal Olímpic, s/n
E-08860 Castelldefels, Spain
http://www.ideg.es
Keywords: GPS/INS, IMU, Hardware, Software, Experimental, Real-time, Navigation, Acquisition
ABSTRACT
The Institute of Geomatics (IG) operates the experimental hardware TAG (Trajectory, Attitude and Gravimetry) for GNSS/IMU data
acquisition, developed during several projects in the field of inertial navigation in photogrammetry and remote sensing, sensor
orientation and geodesy. The hardware basically consists of commercially available devices. The IG has a set of inertial
measurement units (IMU) available that cover the whole range of the quality and price spectrum, in order to be able to give answer
to the wide demand in the field of inertial navigation research and development. The software is the result of IG development work
and ensures time synchronization of the measurements obtained, data capturing for post-processing and operation in real-time mode.
The system is open to extension with new sensors and to modification to new applications. This paper gives a summary of the TAG
elements and their architecture, of the system's functionalities and potential, of some of the experiments in which it was involved,
and it will give some results of a real time experiment conducted.
1 INTRODUCTION
The Institute of Geomatics (IG) is a public consortium between
the Generalitat de Catalunya (the autonomous government of
Catalonia, Spain) and the UPC (University of Technology of
Catalonia). It started its research, development and educational
activities in 1999. The IG, among other investigations, does
research and advanced experimental development in the area of
sensor integration (e.g. INS/GNSS) for kinematic positioning,
trajectory and attitude determination and gravity measurement.
The research and development activities include amongst
others:
- test, evaluation and integration of instruments (IMU
inertial measurement units, GPS receivers and others
like odometers and barometers or innovative
redundant instrument configurations),
- development of algorithms and software to handle
and analyse the data, computing modes and
paradigms,
- feasibility studies and methodology tests for practical
applications of the technology.
For such activities it is necessary to have full access to
hardware and software that allows rapid implementation and
testing of new ideas or new instruments. Therefore, the IG has
over the last few years built up the TAG system (Trajectory,
Attitude and Gravimetry), a data acquisition system to conduct
applied research, testing sensors and for conducting
experimental observation campaigns in various environments.
The platform has a pure scientific / experimental character, is
open to extensions on the hardware and software level and is
under permanent development.
The development is request driven, i.e. it takes place in close
collaboration with other research organizations and private
companies. By means of the system and its instruments, the IG
tries to give answers to actual demands and requests coming
from geodesy, navigation, photogrammetry, remote sensing and
others related to geomatics.
In this paper we want to give an update on the experimental
INS/GNSS works at the Institute of Geomatics with the TAG
system, present its actual configuration options and describe a
few experiments and exemplary results.
2 ACTUAL REQUIREMENTS ON THE SYSTEM
Most frequent demands are:
- Determination of | parameters for direct
georeferencing,
- precise trajectory determination for airborne remote
sensing and land vehicles for fast and/or mobile
mapping, :
- . gravimetry measurements for geoide determination.
The areas of actual demand mentioned above imply some
particular fields of actuation, which include:
- high precision and accuracy in trajectory
determination in post-processing
- real time position and attitude determination
- use of low cost instruments
- use of specially designed instruments
- use of particular configurations
- performance analysis
In the context of such a wide range of possible applications, all
work on and with the TAG underlies the general implicit
requirements of generality, adaptability and portability
(compare Colomina et al. 1992). Generality here is understood
as the capacity to master the wide range of potential
applications for the TAG and a broad range of IMU / GNSS
sensors. Adaptability is the capacity of the system to
incorporate new sensors and methodologies. Portability means
the power to run the system on different platforms and in
different environments with minor or no changes.
The development policy for the TAG system described in
[Colomina et al. 2002] and [Wis et al. 2003] seemed to be
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