Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/02/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]INS navigation uses 4 inputs to figure out where it is at any time.... Elapsed time, velocity, direction ( vector) of starting, and initial start location. Without a single one of those inputs, INS is not an absolute location process. In fact, it is not an absolute system.. it is a relative system of location. Relative to its initial starting location. State of the art Missiles work on initial position of GPS ( or effectively "manual" or external download). Followed by a complex vector analysis of speed, direction of firing, projectile aerodynamics, and time. All of this can be gotten from the GPS satellite data, if it is working and the signal can be found. I was at the Draper Labs, making and testing state of the art gyros that allowed INS to function in missiles. We used the Apollo gyros for desk weights. They were junk compared to the stuff we were working on. Frank Filippone red735i@earthlink.net