GNSS Forecast Assured Navigation for Signal Obstruction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles and drones rely on accurate GPS signals for navigation, but urban and rural environments often experience signal obscuration and multipath issues due to obstacles, leading to positioning inaccuracies and potential safety risks.
Innovation Solution
The Forecast Assured Navigation (FAN) technology provides a cloud-based service that predicts GNSS signal availability by using high-definition 3D maps and satellite data to forecast satellite obscurations and multipath, enabling vehicles to plan routes with reliable signal coverage and accommodate real-time changes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If vehicles navigate in urban environments with obstacles, then route flexibility and adaptability improve, but GPS signal obscuration and multipath errors increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-computing GNSS forecasts including obscuration and multipath effects for potential route segments before the vehicle actually travels them. This allows the routing algorithm to have advance knowledge of signal quality along different paths, enabling it to select routes that maintain reliability while preserving flexibility to adapt to urban environments.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary component - the GNSS forecast service - that mediates between the vehicle's navigation needs and the actual GPS signal conditions. This service provides predictive information about signal quality, allowing the routing system to make informed decisions about path selection without directly experiencing the signal obscuration issues.
2Reliability
If GPS signal coverage is improved in obstructed areas, then navigation reliability improves, but positioning accuracy deteriorates due to multipath effects
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback by incorporating multipath forecasts into the routing decisions. The GNSS forecast service provides predictive information about multipath effects, and this feedback is used by the routing algorithm to adjust path selection, avoiding areas where multipath would severely degrade positioning accuracy while maintaining navigation reliability through alternative routes.
3Adaptability or versatility
If real-time route changes are accommodated, then operational flexibility improves, but GNSS signal availability may be compromised in diverted paths
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary computation of GNSS forecasts for multiple potential route segments in advance, before real-time route changes are needed. This pre-computation enables the system to quickly evaluate alternative paths and make operational flexibility decisions without compromising GNSS signal availability, as the signal quality information is already available from the pre-computed forecasts.
Data Source
AI summary
The technology disclosed teaches a method of path planning using a GNSS Forecast, requesting the GNSS Forecast of signal obscuration on behalf of a vehicle travelling in a region, receiving and using the Forecast to plan a path or route that has GNSS signals available over the path or route that satisfy a predetermined criterium. Also taught are GNSS Forecasts and planned paths or routes for a plurality of flying vehicles used by a flight control system, requesting the GNSS Forecast of signal obscuration on behalf of a flying autonomous or automated vehicle travelling in a region, receiving and using the Forecast and to plan a path with GNSS signals available over the path that satisfy predetermined criteria including accommodating real-time changes in flight paths, without leaving space, that satisfies the predetermined criteria. Also taught is certifying performance of GNSS receivers used on a flying vessel.