Hybrid navigation is the simultaneous use of more than one

navigation system A navigation system is a computing system that aids in navigation. Navigation systems may be entirely on board the vehicle or vessel that the system is controlling (for example, on the ship's bridge) or located elsewhere, making use of radio or othe ...

for location data determination, needed for

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

. By using multiple systems at once, the accuracy as a whole is improved. It also allows for a more reliable navigation system, as if one system fails, the other can kick in and provide accurate navigation for the user. Especially for

self-driving cars A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...

, the exact and continuous knowledge of the navigating object's location is essential.

Function

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

or other satellite based systems (

GLONASS GLONASS (russian: ГЛОНАСС, label=none, ; rus, links=no, Глобальная навигационная спутниковая система, r=Global'naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema, t=Global Navigation Satellite System) is ...

, GALILEO,

BEIDOU The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS; ) is a Chinese satellite navigation system. It consists of two separate satellite constellations. The first BeiDou system, officially called the BeiDou Satellite Navigation Experimental System and ...

QZSS The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), also known as , is a four-satellite regional time transfer system and a satellite-based augmentation system developed by the Japanese government to enhance the United States-operated Global Position ...

) provide a way to learn one's location, but these methods require

free field In physics a free field is a field without interactions, which is described by the terms of motion and mass. Description In classical physics, a free field is a field whose equations of motion are given by linear partial differential equat ...

conditions in order to receive the radio signal. Various satellite systems are subject to switching-off or reduction of data precision by the company or government that runs them. They are also prone to intentional or unintentional disturbances. Even passing through a tunnel or a garage interrupts the data flow. In situations where the signal cannot be received reliably, alternate sources of location data are needed. Combining GPS with other methods can avoid these limitations, but each method has its own specific limitations. A hybrid system provides

fault tolerance Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...

for each underlying method and improves the overall precision of the result. The hybrid system needs to decide how to choose among the different methods at any given time. One solution is a triple configuration, allowing 'result voting' for data collecting systems. Alternate systems that supply navigational data include: *

Beacon A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. A common example is the lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be used to navigate around obstacles or into port. More mode ...

s providing radio- or infrared based signals. *

Inertial navigation system An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (dir ...

s. This system determines location by summing the movement vectors from start of the trip or some other

waypoint A waypoint is an intermediate point or place on a route or line of travel, a stopping point or point at which course is changed, the first use of the term tracing to 1880. In modern terms, it most often refers to coordinates which specify one's posi ...

whose location is well-defined. * Incremental sensors. This system uses vehicle speed data supplied by a

Fleet Management System The Fleet Management Systems Interface (FMS) is a standard interface to vehicle data of commercial vehicles. The six European manufacturers Daimler AG, MAN AG, Scania, Volvo (including Renault), DAF Trucks and IVECO developed the so-called FMS-Stan ...

. *

Differential GPS Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPSs) supplement and enhance the positional data available from global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). A DGPS for GPS can increase accuracy by about a thousandfold, from approximately to . DGPSs c ...

. This system uses

terrestrial radio Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...

transmitters with well-defined locations that broadcast information about how accurate the GPS signals are at identifying the locations of these transmitters.

References

External links

Homepage of 'Deutschen Gesellschaft für Ortung und Navigation (DGON)'

Wildau Video
{{Commons category, Navigation Mobile technology Communication Navigational equipment

Function

See also

References

External links