Unmanned Aircraft Flight Control Aided by Phased-Array Radio Navigation

Abstract

Navigation systems of safety‐critical unmanned aircraft need an alternative position aiding source to global navigation satellite system. One promising alternative, is position measurements from phased‐array radio systems. The presented navigation system consist of a multiplicative extended Kalman filter that utilize these measurements, along with an exogenous altitude measurement, to aid an inertial navigation system. The reliability and accuracy of the navigation system is demonstrated through beyond‐visual‐line‐of‐sight flights with a fixed‐wing unmanned aerial vehicle, without the use of global navigation satellite systems. This uses a conventional guidance controller module, which also monitor the navigation quality.