Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Aided Navigation

ABSTRACT: The primary objective of this proposal is to develop an algorithmic framework for joint utilization of Global Positioning System (GPS)/ Inertial Navigation System (INS)/ Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) in order to simultaneously improve the localization accuracy and integrity of an airborne sensor system"s navigation system. As stated in the topic solicitation,"the research needed includes derivation of both position update from SAR images as well as velocity updates which may be able to be obtained from the processing of SAR data."To address the unknown-trajectory problem, we propose a robust combination of complimentary SAR-based approaches. Each of the of the approaches will be analyzed to quantify the system performance based on the environment sensed by the SAR sensor. The SAR-based location estimates will include estimates of the measurement integrity, which will be utilized in a tightly coupled joint GPS/INS/SAR estimate of the platform trajectory. BENEFIT: The primary benefit of successful completion of this effort is a new framework for integrating multiple sources of location information into improve overall location estimate accuracy and integrity. This capability has numerous commercial applications in various business sectors such as defense, shipping, logistics, and mapping.