This study is purposed to develop an efficient GPS (Global Positioning System)/INS (Inertial Navigation System) integration method for relative navigation and to evaluate its performance by a field experiment. Relative navigation has been an active research topic in recent years to enable more accurate monitoring or inflight formation of multiple vehicles. The developed software module consists of three parts; relative strapdown INS, relative GPS, and relative GPS/INS integration filter. The performance of the proposed integration method was evaluated by an experiment utilizing two ground vehicles where each vehicle was equipped a GPS receiver and an IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit). The experimental results show that accurate relative navigation information can be obtained by the developed software module.

Keywords: relative navigation, GPS/INS integration, CSC filter