An Inertial Navigation System For the Military

An Inertial Navigation System For the Military

An inertial navigation system (INS) determines the position of aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, ships and other vehicles by integrating accelerations and rotations that are sensed by gyroscopes and accelerometers.military inertial navigation system These sensors do not depend on any external signals to function, which makes them a useful tool for vehicles traveling in remote or hostile environments.

The technology can also help navigate vehicles through a fog bank, for instance.military inertial navigation system It can even allow for more direct routes over water and across the polar regions, as it does not require an aircraft to fly from beacon to beacon. The technology is used in most large airliners and in military vehicles including helicopters, submarines and missiles.

It is one of the greatest advances in navigation, freeing aviators from having to rely on magnetic compasses and gimballed gyroscopes that had severe limitations especially near the poles.military inertial navigation system However, a new technology emerged in the 1980s that may ultimately replace inertial systems on civilian planes. It is a satellite-based system of beacons called the Global Positioning System that has the potential to provide more accurate information than inertial systems.

But the military still uses INS to guide vehicles, as it has the ability to operate in conditions where the GPS network might be suppressed or attacked.military inertial navigation system It is also very accurate, even in polar areas and in water where satellite signals are lost or blocked.

Most INSs are based on mechanical gyros, massive hoops of metal kept spinning around a single axis by electric motors. The gyroscopes are carefully balanced so that the acceleration of the vehicle does not exert a torque on the gyro. The gyroscopes then measure the rate of rotation (angular velocity) and the direction of rotation (heading).

Other sensors are included in most INSs to assist in determining the vehicle's position. They include linear accelerometers, which measure changes in acceleration that are not due to angular motion; and a rotary accelerometer, which measures the rotational acceleration of the vehicle about the x-axis.

The INS sensors also combine with a computer to compute the vehicle's position and heading based on the measured data. They are usually mounted on a special platform, referred to as an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and can be strapped down to the vehicle for so-called strapdown INSs.

MagNav is a joint project between the Air Force Research Laboratory Sensors Directorate, the Air Force Institute of Technology Autonomy and Navigation Center, the Software-as-a-Service company SandboxAQ and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory. It was successfully flown aboard a C-17 during Exercise Golden Phoenix in early May, which was aimed at practicing moving personnel and cargo around the US using GPS-degraded or denied conditions. The team plans to use the technology to develop more advanced sensors for the Department of Defense. They are working on more sophisticated, more intelligent sensors that will incorporate visual and cellular transmissions in addition to quantum magnetic sensing to improve the performance of the INS. They will also focus on making it more resilient and capable of surviving GPS interference.

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