Relative positioning method for unmanned aerial vehicles in complex electromagnetic environment

Abstract

Abstract In view of the problem that satellite navigation and positioning systems may fail or be unreliable in complex electromagnetic environments, which may lead to divergence of UAV positioning, the inertial navigation systems working for a long time may lead to increasing errors. This paper adopts a relative navigation algorithm that combines airborne inertial navigation systems and inter-aircraft relative information measurement. The algorithm requires each UAV to load relative navigation equipment and inertial navigation systems and acquire and fuse relative navigation information through inter-aircraft communication. In this relative navigation algorithm, the host and wing plane can transmit their respective navigation information and relative navigation information to each other, and fuse information from different sources through a Kalman filtering algorithm to enhance the accuracy of relative positioning data. With the help of corrected and feedback relative positioning data, the relative location of the host and wingman is achieved. The actual simulation results show that the relative position RMSE of the host, Wing Plane 1, and Wing Plane 2 in the X, Y, and Z dimensions are 1.345 m, 0.7388 m, 1.645 m, 2.167 m, 1.201 m, and 2.069 m, respectively. It is apparent that this scheme improves the relative navigation performance and robustness of the UAV group.