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Inertial Navigation System Testing 1967

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2010

J. Z. Amacker
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Abstract

The Central Inertial Guidance Test Facility (C.I.G.T.F.) at Holloman Air Force base, New Mexico, has the responsibility for testing all aircraft inertial navigational systems, aided and unaided, for Department of Defence applications. From 1963 to the present, ten systems have been evaluated. The experience derived from past test programmes has always been valuable to the C.I.G.T.F. engineers in the design of increasingly sophisticated programmes.

This paper retraces some of the experience of the C.I.G.T.F. in its inertial navigation system testing. Test philosophy, objectives and approach are discussed briefly. Flightpath design, radar coverage, range instrumentation, aircraft instrumentation, data reduction and analysis of system performance are then considered. In addition, some mention is made of the test programmes presently being designed, and the technical problems of INS evaluation that the C.I.G.T.F. is now attempting to resolve. Because of the breadth of subject material, ideas are presented mostly at the concept level. Technical details are contained in the references.

The C.I.G.T.F. test method is to fly the test specimen within the coverage of the FPS-16 radars or other instrumentation of the White Sands missile range. An airborne tape recorder records where the system ‘thinks’ it is, along with a range reference time signal (irig-b). Likewise, the FPS-16 radar site records where the radar ‘knows’ the aircraft is, referenced to the same time base. Post-flight data reduction compares the outputs of system and reference at each sample/time, and forms an error plot of the differences in position in each channel. This is the basic error data used to describe system performance.

Type
The Performance of Airborne Inertial Systems
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 1967 , pp. 432 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1967

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References

REFERENCES

1Aircraft Inertial Navigation System, Test Program Information. (1966). C.I.G.T.F., Holloman A.F.B., New Mexico, 03.Google Scholar
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