The demands for accurate positioning of a moving vessel in the offshore and open ocean areas are presently at the 2 m to 5 m level and are expected to approach the sub‐meter level within this decade. These accuracies cannot be obtained by conventional navigation systems. The potential of inertial and GPS‐satellite techniques for such high accuracy applications has been studied. With the feasibility of the approach previously demonstrated by computer simulations, results of actual runs on land and in the Canadian offshore are now available. This paper gives a brief outline of the mathematical techniques used and an analysis of the results achieved to date and discusses improvements envisaged for the next stage of the research.
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