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How does an inertial navigation system calculate position from acceleration measurements?
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Officers on a passenger ship using charts for navigation.
An inertial guidance system calculates position by utilizing accelerometers to measure changes in a vehicle's velocity and gyroscopes to establish a stable frame of reference or measure turning rates.12
The process relies on the principles of mathematical physics, where acceleration is the rate of change of velocity, and velocity is the rate of change of position. To determine the vehicle's location, a computer performs two successive numerical integrations on the data provided by the sensors:21
- First Integration: The system integrates the measured acceleration data over time to compute the vehicle's current velocity.12
- Second Integration: The system then integrates the computed velocity to determine the vehicle's current position relative to its starting point.12
By continuously performing these calculations in three dimensions, the system provides real-time navigational data without requiring external communication, effectively functioning as a sophisticated dead-reckoning device.12