Unified navigation and inertial target tracking estimation system

Abstract

A target tracking method uses sensor(s) producing target signals subject to positional and/or angular bias, which are updated with sensor bias estimates to produce updated target-representative signals. Time propagation produces time-updated target states and sensor positional and angular biases. The Jacobian of the state dynamics of a target model produces the state transition matrix for extended Kalman filtering. Target state vector and bias covariances of the sensor are time propagated. The Kalman measurement residual is computed to produce state corrections, which are added to the time updated filter states to thereby produce (i) target state updates and (ii) sensor positional and angular bias updates. The covariance of a state vector comprising target states and sensor positional and angular biases is propagated, producing measurement updated state covariance including (i) target position and velocity measurement covariance updates and (ii) the sensor positional and angular bias measurement covariance updates.