The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

William W Whitacre

Benjamin F Lane

Juha-Pekka J Laine

Stephen P Smith

Robin Mark Adrian Dawson

Gregory P Blasche

Joseph M Kinast

Michael A Aucoin

Cort Nolan Johnson

Jeffrey D Jungemann

Peter A Lewis

Christopher C Yu

Piotr Indyk

Matthew A Sinclair

Lei Hamilton

Patrick O'Shea

Charles A McPherson

Timothy Galvin

Charles A McPherson, Jr

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

Local terrain feature location data is obtained from a local sensor device at a user location without a prior-known global position. The local terrain feature location data characterizes relative distances and directions to a plurality of local terrain features nearest to the user location. Global terrain feature location data stored in at least one hardware memory device is accessed. The global terrain feature location data characterizes relative distances and directions between a plurality of distinctive terrain features located in a defined terrain region in terms of absolute global location coordinates. The local terrain feature location data is compared to the global terrain feature location data to develop multiple pattern matching hypotheses, wherein each pattern matching hypothesis characterizes a likelihood of a subset of the local terrain features matching a subset the global terrain features. Global location coordinates for the user location is then determined from the pattern matching hypotheses.

Lost-in-forest GPS-denied positioning system

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.

Systems and methods may identify at least a first set of right singular vectors and a first set of singular values of a subset of the matrix, reduce the subset by an amount of energy of a selected data entry of the subset based on the first set of right singular vectors and the first set of singular values, incorporate a new data entry from the matrix into the subset, update the first set of right singular vectors and the first set of singular values of the subset based on the new data entry by a singular value decomposition (SVD) update, and generate the low-rank approximation of the matrix based on the updated first set of right singular vectors and the updated first set of singular values.

Systems and methods for low-rank matrix approximation

A navigation system determines a position by referring to artificial or natural satellites or other space objects during daylight or when the objects are in a planet's shadow. A telescope and image sensor observe and image shadows of the objects as the objects transit the sun or a sunlit surface of a planet or moon, thereby solving problems related to the two key times during which traditional SkyMark navigation is difficult or impossible.

Position determination by observing a celestial object transit the sun or moon

Methods and computer products for establishing at least one of attitude, direction and position of a moving platform. At least one skymark of known ephemeris is imaged at each of a first set of discrete instants by means of an optical sensor coupled to the platform. A measurement is also obtained of the attitude of the platform at each of a second set of discrete instants by means of an inertial navigation system. A recursive of estimation filter is then applied to successive skymark position vectors to update an estimate of platform navigation state, with the measurement of attitude of the platform tightly coupled to the estimate of platform navigation state as updated by the recursive estimation filter. Various techniques of frame stacking and multi-hypothesis tracking may be applied to improve the robustness of navigation solutions.

Methods and apparatus for navigational aiding using celestial object tracking

Scattered light in the sky (sky glow) from light sources at one or more known geographic locations is used as reference point(s), from which geographic location of a system observing the sky glow is automatically ascertained. The light is scattered by particulates in the atmosphere. An upward looking camera captures an image of the sky, including the sky glow. A search engine automatically searches a catalog of modeled or pre-stored sky glows for a model that matches the image. Each model is associated with a geographic location. The models characterize each sky glow, such as in terms of color, intensity, etc., as the sky glow would appear from the associated geographic location. If a matching model is found, within a predetermined match criterion, the system outputs the geographic location associated with the matching model. Optionally, the geographic location is used to select and display a map of the geographic location.

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William W Whitacre