Algorithm and Accuracy Evaluation of Autonomous Bionic Positioning Method based on Skylight Polarization

As the skylight polarization navigation at present is based on dead reckoning which can only provide orientation information to navigate or relative position but not the absolute location of the observer, in this paper, a bionic absolute positioning method based on skylight polarization was proposed: the longitude and latitude of the current position could be solved through the polarization angle of the skylight, the course angle of the vehicle, the relative relationship between the solar and the earth. In addition, the simulation verification provided an accuracy of 0.483km in average. A positioning error model was developed, and the simulation shows that the precision of the sensors has a great impact on the positioning accuracy. Finally, the initial outdoor tests give a longitude accuracy of -0.149o in average and a latitude accuracy of 0.418o in average. Although the positioning accuracy obtained from the experiment is no better than the existing positioning systems, such as GPS, the proposed positioning method which is totally autonomous, convenient and without accumulated error is still worth to be improved since it would be useful when manmade positioning systems are disabled.