Unmanned Systems Technology 022 | XOcean XO-450 l Radar systems l Space vehicles insight l Small Robot l BMPower FCPS l Prismatic HALE UAV l InterDrone 2018 show report l UpVision l Navigation systems

(known as Skylark) currently under development and due to become operational in the US before early 2019 (with global expansion of the network anticipated thereafter). INS integration At the core of every GPS-INS (inertial navigation system) or GNSS-INS integrated solution is a proprietary Kalman filter algorithm that couples GNSS position data with inertial accelerometer and gyroscope data, and processes both of them together to provide the vehicle with data on its position, velocity and attitude. The core of a given company’s Kalman filter algorithm will typically remain the same across different products; they vary mainly in the performance levels of the integrated IMU (inertial measurement unit) and GNSS receiver. The availability of such systems for SWaP-constrained unmanned vehicles has risen significantly in recent years thanks to the miniaturisation of sensors in the mid-2000s. That has allowed three- axis accelerometers and gyroscopes to be installed simultaneously on a single printed circuit board (PCB). While there is a limit to how far GNSS- INS units can be physically scaled down and still provide the accuracy, update rates and multi-band capability for military or similarly demanding applications, the weight of commercial- grade GNSS-INS integrated modules is now less than 30 g. The use of an integrated GNSS- INS solution provides a couple of Coupling a GNSS receiver to an INS allows safety and redundancy when there’s a risk of crossing through GNSS-denied environments (Courtesy of VectorNav)