The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.

The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.

Date of Patent:
Apr. 06, 2010

Filed:

Jul. 27, 2005
Applicants:

Kurt R. Zimmerman, Mountain View, CA (US);

Dave Lawrence, Mountain View, CA (US);

Michael L. O'connor, Redwood City, CA (US);

Paul Montgomery, Menlo Park, CA (US);

Inventors:

Kurt R. Zimmerman, Mountain View, CA (US);

Dave Lawrence, Mountain View, CA (US);

Michael L. O'Connor, Redwood City, CA (US);

Paul Montgomery, Menlo Park, CA (US);

Assignee:

Novariant, Inc., Fremont, CA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G01C 21/00 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
Abstract

A satellite navigation system using multiple antennas for providing the position of multiple fiduciary points on an object even when fewer than four satellites are visible to some or all the antennas. Satellite signals from the multiple antennas are fed into at least one receiver. The receiver or receivers utilize constraint information, which is independent of the satellite signals. These external constraints are used to augment the signals received from the satellites, to obtain the position solution for each antenna. In a preferred embodiment, a common reference clock is used to provide an external constraint. Examples of other external constraints that can be used in the current invention are distance between the antennas, inertial measurement of attitude, rotational or linear position sensors, etc.


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