Flight-testing of a cooperative UGV-to-UAV strategy for improved positioning in challenging GNSS environments

摘要

We present an experimental flight test evaluation of a cooperative navigation strategy in which an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that is subjected to very poor GNSS satellite geometry is provided ranging updates from Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV). Central to the design of this approach, the UGV's motion planning is designed to provide the most favorable positioning geometry for the UAV. During a set of field tests, the positioning error of a UAV that is confronted with unfavorable GNSS satellite geometry is shown to be reduced by more than five-fold through the use of ranging updates from a UGV. (C) 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.