Design and Implementation of Altitude Estimation Algorithm in the Integrated Barometric-inertial Altimeter Using Model Predictive Control

In this paper, design and implementation of a new algorithm based on predictive model controller will be presented to reduce the height estimation error in vertical channel of inertial navigation system (INS). Vertical channel instability in the inertial navigation systems not only causes the measurement errors increase exponentially with altitude, but also leads to loss of precision in the state estimation process in the navigation system as well. This indicates the importance and necessity of providing accurate estimation of vertical altitude in the inertial navigation algorithms. In this paper, an integrated barometric-inertial altimeter is presented in order to reduce the vertical channel error in the INS. Designing model predictive controller, the vertical channel instability has been controlled despite of the inevitable errors in the measurement of the inertial sensors. Therefore, accurate estimate of the height will be provided. The proposed algorithm is implemented and validated by vehicular test. The experimental results show that by applying the proposed algorithm, the estimation accuracy of the vertical altitude will be enhanced.