A SINS/SAR/GPS Fusion Positioning System Based on Sensor Credibility Evaluations

A reliable framework for SINS/SAR/GPS integrated positioning systems is proposed for the case that sensors are in critical environments. Credibility is used to describe the difference between the true error and the initial setting standard deviation. Credibility evaluation methods for inertial measurement unit (IMU), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and global positioning system (GPS) are presented. In particular, IMU credibility is modeled by noises and constant drifts that are accumulated with time in a strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS). The quality of the SAR image decides the credibility of positioning based on SAR image matching. In addition, a cumulative residual chi-square test is used to evaluate GPS credibility. An extended Kalman filter based on a sensor credibility evaluation is introduced to integrate the measurements. The measurement of a sensor is either discarded when its credibility value is below a threshold or the variance matrix for the estimated state is otherwise adjusted. Simulations show that the final fusion positioning accuracy with credibility evaluation can be improved by 1–2 times compared to that without evaluation. In addition, the derived standard deviation correctly indicates the value of the position error with credibility evaluation. Moreover, the experiments on an unmanned ground vehicle partially verify the proposed evaluation method of GPS and the fusion framework in the actual environment.