초록 ▼

A method of navigating an airborne vehicle using observation of linear features such as roads, railroads, rivers or the like. Maps of linear features in several discrete areas along an intended flight path are prepared and entered into an on-board computer memory. The vehicle typically uses an inert

A method of navigating an airborne vehicle using observation of linear features such as roads, railroads, rivers or the like. Maps of linear features in several discrete areas along an intended flight path are prepared and entered into an on-board computer memory. The vehicle typically uses an inertial navigation system during flight from the origin to the first mapped area. Imaging sensors and on-board processing detect linear features as the vehicle approaches or passes over them. The sensed feature pattern network is compared to the reference mapped feature network to update the inertial navigation system to generate guidance commands. Frequent updates at other mapped areas keep the vehicle on course. This system is also capable of navigation updates from single linear features when the flight path is fairly well known, and of tracking a linear feature for terminal guidance. In these cases, only a small number of feature parameters need to be stored, rather than an area map. Linear feature navigation can be used by any manned or unmanned airborne vehicle which has the on-board capability to detect the required features.

대표청구항 ▼

A method of airborne vehicle navigation using linear feature sequence matching which consists of: preparing a map of extended, substantially one-dimensional linear features along a selected path to be flown; flying an airborne vehicle along the initial portion of said path; detecting linear ground f

A method of airborne vehicle navigation using linear feature sequence matching which consists of: preparing a map of extended, substantially one-dimensional linear features along a selected path to be flown; flying an airborne vehicle along the initial portion of said path; detecting linear ground features as the vehicle crosses them; recording the current position as each feature is crossed, the distances between each pair of crossings and the vehicle movement direction between each pair of crossings to produce an X, Y vector distance between each pair of crossings; shifting the map network between each pair of crossings through the vector distance; recording all intersection positions between the shifted and unshifted maps; accumulating votes at each position through a plurality of successive crossings; projecting forward the votes from earlier crossings to the Nth crossing; whereby the position having the most votes at the Nth crossing is the actual location; correcting the actual vehicle flight path to return the vehicle to the desired flight path.