The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.

Avidyne Corporation

Michael A Aucoin

Juha-Pekka J Laine

Benjamin F Lane

Stephen P Smith

Robin Mark Adrian Dawson

Gregory P Blasche

Joseph M Kinast

William W Whitacre

Theodore H Cannaday, Jr

Cort Nolan Johnson

David A Southard

Jeffrey D Jungemann

Peter A Lewis

Lowell F Bell

Frédéric Gouin

A distributed navigation system includes navigation platforms, each having a universal navigation processor, relative navigation systems to provide source information to the navigation platforms, navigation filters provided on one or more of the universal navigation processors, and an anchor navigation node disposed on one or more of the navigation platforms to form one or more anchor navigation platforms. Each anchor navigation node includes an inertial navigation system, a clock, and absolute navigation systems, which are used, in combination with source information, to determine navigation information. The anchor navigation platforms provide the navigation information to other navigation platforms. The system further includes a navigation processor system in communication with the universal navigation processors to provide operating information updates to the universal navigation processors and a graphical user interface to display the navigation information to a user and permit the user to review and control the navigation information.

Multi-source distributed navigation system architecture

A distributed navigation system architecture includes a plurality of navigation platforms, each having a universal navigation processor configured to communicate with other universal navigation processors, one or more relative navigation systems configured to provide source information to the navigation platforms, an anchor navigation node disposed on one or more of the plurality of navigation platforms in order to form one or more anchor navigation platforms, the anchor navigation node, including an inertial navigation system, a clock, and one or more absolute navigation systems, configured to determine navigation information based on the inertial navigation system, the clock, the one or more absolute navigation systems and optionally the source information, the one or more anchor navigation platforms providing the navigation information to the other navigation platforms, and a navigation processor system in communication with each of the universal navigation processors in order to provide operating information updates to the universal navigation processors.

A navigation system for determining quality and integrity of source information includes one or more data sources that provide the source information, a situation module that provides situation data, an information module that determines an estimate of the quality and an estimate of the integrity of the source information based on the source information and the situation data, an integrity monitor module that determines the integrity and the quality of the source information based on the estimate of the quality and the estimate of the integrity of the source information from the information module, and that validates the source information based on the integrity of the source information and/or the quality of the source information, and a navigation state estimator that determines the navigation information of the one or more objects based on the validated source information and corresponding quality of the source information received from the integrity monitor module.

Systems and methods for determining quality and integrity of source information to determine navigation information of an object

A method for creating minimal data representing a source image is presented. The source image is divided into a grid of cells. A color is selected for each cell corner based on sampling an area defined by the cell corner. An indication of the selected color is stored in an array dependent on the co-ordinates of the cell corner in the source image.

Method for digital transmission and display of weather imagery

Growing community of inventors

North Andover, MA, United States of America

Michael A Aucoin