Inertial navigation system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11112422-B2
Application number	US-201615371711-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 7, 2016
Priority date	Dec 7, 2015
Publication date	Sep 7, 2021
Grant date	Sep 7, 2021

Abstract

An inertial measurement system for a spinning projectile includes: a first, roll gyro to be oriented substantially parallel to the spin axis of the projectile; a second gyro and a third gyro with axes arranged with respect to the roll gyro; a controller, arranged to: compute a current projectile attitude from the outputs of the first, second and third gyros, the computed attitude comprising a roll angle, a pitch angle and a yaw angle; calculate a roll angle error; provide the roll angle error as an input to a Kalman filter that outputs a roll angle correction and a roll rate scale factor correction; and apply the calculated roll angle correction and roll rate scale factor correction to the output of the roll gyro.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An inertial measurement system for a spinning projectile comprising:
a first gyro to be oriented substantially parallel to a spin axis of the projectile;
a second gyro and a third gyro with axes arranged with respect to the first gyro such that they define a three dimensional coordinate system;
the first gyro, the second gyro and the third gyro each being arranged to produce an output;
a Kalman filter; and
a controller, arranged to:
compute a current projectile attitude from the outputs of the first, second and third gyros, the computed attitude comprising a roll angle, a pitch angle and a yaw angle;
calculate a roll angle error based on a difference between the computed pitch and yaw angles and expected pitch and yaw angles;
provide the roll angle error as an input to the Kalman filter that outputs a roll angle correction and a roll rate scale factor correction; and
apply the calculated roll angle correction and the roll rate scale factor correction to the output of the first gyro;

wherein the Kalman filter models roll angle error as a function of roll rate having a component correlated with roll rate and a separate component correlated with crosswind effects; and
wherein using observations made over time, the Kalman filter isolates the component correlated with roll rate and the component correlated with crosswind effects, thereby maintaining an estimate of the prevailing crosswind and using the remaining component correlated with roll rate to calculate the roll rate scale factor correction.

2. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the Kalman filter is configured such that in use it iteratively updates the model parameters.

3. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is arranged to supply meteorological data to the filter as an initial condition for the Kalman filter.

4. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is arranged to apply the roll rate scale factor correction directly to the first gyro output, and is arranged to apply the roll angle correction to an attitude integration unit.

5. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the first gyro is a MEMS gyro.

6. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the expected pitch and yaw angles as a function of flight time correspond to those expected from planar ballistic flight.

7. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 6 , wherein the roll angle error is calculated as the angle whose tangent is the ratio of the rate of change of the calculated yaw angle to the rate of change of the calculated pitch angle.

8. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 7 , further comprising a low pass filter arranged to filter out high frequency components of changes in the yaw angle and the pitch angle before calculation of the rate of change of the yaw angle and the rate of change of the pitch angle.

9. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the expected values for pitch and yaw angles as a function of flight time are taken from a pre-computed flight trajectory which may be non-planar.

10. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system has no linear accelerometers.

11. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the roll angle correction and roll scale factor correction are only applied prior to any guidance action being initiated.

12. The inertial measurement system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is arranged to calculate the roll angle error based on the difference between the computed pitch angle rate and yaw angle rate and expected pitch and yaw angle rates.

13. A method of correcting roll angle in an inertial measurement system for a spinning projectile, comprising carrying out the following steps on a controller:
computing a current projectile attitude comprising a roll angle, a pitch angle and a yaw angle;
calculating a roll angle error based on the difference between the computed pitch and yaw angles and expected pitch and yaw angles;
providing the roll angle error as an input to a Kalman filter that outputs a roll angle correction and a roll rate scale factor correction; and
applying the calculated roll angle correction and roll rate scale factor correction to the output of a roll gyro;
wherein the Kalman filter models roll angle error as a function of roll rate having a component correlated with roll rate and a separate component correlated with crosswind effects; and
wherein using observations made over time, the Kalman filter isolates the component correlated with roll rate and the component correlated with crosswind effects, thereby maintaining an estimate of the prevailing crosswind and using the remaining component correlated with roll rate to calculate the roll rate scale factor correction.

14. A method of correcting roll angle in an inertial navigation system for a longitudinal projectile, comprising carrying out the following steps on a controller:
computing a current projectile attitude comprising a roll angle, a pitch angle and a yaw angle;
calculating the rates of change of the pitch angle and yaw angle, using these rates to calculate a roll angle error and providing this as an input to a Kalman filter that outputs a roll angle correction and a roll rate scale factor correction; and
applying the calculated roll angle correction to the computed attitude and the roll rate scale factor correction to the roll gyro output;
wherein the Kalman filter models roll angle error as a function of roll rate having a component correlated with roll rate and a separate component correlated with crosswind effects; and
wherein using observations made over time, the Kalman filter isolates the component correlated with roll rate and the component correlated with crosswind effects, thereby maintaining an estimate of the prevailing crosswind and using the remaining component correlated with roll rate to calculate the roll rate scale factor correction.

Assignees

• Atlantic Inertial Systems Ltd

Inventors

• Sheard John Keith
• Faulkner Nicholas Mark

Classifications

• G05D2109/28

  Missiles · CPC title

• G01C21/183

  Compensation of inertial measurements, e.g. for temperature effects · CPC title

• G01P13/025 Primary

  indicating air data, i.e. flight variables of an aircraft, e.g. angle of attack, side slip, shear, yaw · CPC title

• F42B15/01

  Arrangements thereon for guidance or control ({steering arrangements F42B10/60}; aircraft flight control B64C; guidance systems other than those installed aboard F41G7/00, F41G9/00; locating by use of radio or other waves G01S; flight control in general G05D1/00; computer aspects G06]) · CPC title

• G01C25/005

  initial alignment, calibration or starting-up of inertial devices · CPC title