Aerial Agriculture
Drones have extensive applications in agriculture. Equipped with high-resolution cameras or remote sensing equipment, drones can perform field surveys, crop monitoring, precision fertilization, and other operations, thereby improving agricultural production efficiency.
Emergency Rescue
During disasters, drones can quickly reach affected areas and provide urgently needed supplies to trapped people. For instance, after earthquakes or floods, drones can conduct aerial searches and deliver supplies, providing strong support for rescue operations.
Logistics Delivery
With the rapid development of e-commerce, drones are increasingly used in logistics delivery. By collaborating with e-commerce platforms, drones can achieve fast and accurate deliveries, thereby improving logistics efficiency.
Air Traffic Management
As air traffic increases, drones play an increasingly important role in management. By establishing air traffic management systems, precise guidance and safety assurance for drones can be achieved, ensuring orderly air traffic operations.
Mobile Surveying
Drones have extensive applications in the field of surveying. Equipped with cameras, inertial navigation, and laser ranging equipment, drones can perform aerial photography, geological and mineral exploration, and marine surveys. They can conduct precise measurements of target areas, reduce labor costs, decrease safety risks, and improve mobility.
Pain Points of Drone Navigation Technology:
Currently, the main navigation technologies used by drones include inertial navigation, satellite navigation, Doppler navigation, terrain-aided navigation, and geomagnetic navigation. Each of these navigation technologies has its pros and cons.
Inertial Navigation:
Advantages: Fully autonomous navigation without relying on any external information, good concealment, unaffected by external interference, not influenced by terrain, and capable of all-weather operation.
Disadvantages: Positioning error accumulates over time, and accuracy is affected by the inertial navigation system.
GPS Navigation:
Advantages: Global, all-weather, continuous, accurate navigation and positioning capabilities, and good real-time performance.
Disadvantages: Susceptible to electromagnetic interference; the GPS receiver's operation is affected by the aircraft's maneuvering. For instance, the signal update frequency of GPS generally ranges between 1 Hz and 2 Hz. If the aircraft needs rapid updates of navigation information, relying solely on the GPS system cannot meet the requirement.
Doppler Navigation:
Advantages: Good autonomy, quick response, strong anti-interference, high speed measurement accuracy, and usable in various weather and terrain conditions.
Disadvantages: Requires the transmission of radio waves during operation, thus lacking good concealment; system performance is affected by terrain and the shape of the reflecting surface. For example, performance declines over flat surfaces or deserts due to poor reflectivity. Accuracy is influenced by antenna orientation, and measurement involves cumulative errors, which increase with flight distance.
Terrain-Aided Navigation:
Advantages: No cumulative error, good concealment, and strong anti-interference capability.
Disadvantages: High computational requirements limit real-time performance. Performance is influenced by terrain, making it suitable for hilly terrains but not for plains or maritime environments; also affected by weather conditions, performing poorly in foggy or cloudy weather. Requires the aircraft to follow specified routes, limiting its maneuverability.
Geomagnetic Navigation:
Advantages: Passive, radiation-free, strong concealment, unaffected by enemy interference, all-weather, low energy consumption, and no cumulative navigation error, with certain advantages in cross-sea guidance.
Disadvantages: Geomagnetic matching requires storing large amounts of geomagnetic data; real-time performance depends on computer data processing capabilities.
Solution
OElabs has introduced an inertial navigation + GPS combined navigation system. The advantages of this combination are:
- It enables the calibration of inertial sensors, in-flight alignment of the inertial navigation system, and stabilization of the inertial navigation system's altitude channel, effectively improving the system's performance and accuracy.
- For the GPS system, the assistance of the inertial navigation system enhances its ability to track satellites, improves receiver dynamics, and anti-jamming capabilities.
- Additionally, the combined navigation system can detect GPS integrity, thereby improving reliability. The combined navigation system can also be integrated, with the GPS receiver placed in the inertial navigation unit, further reducing the system's size, weight, and cost, facilitating synchronization between inertial navigation and GPS, and minimizing desynchronization errors.
- By leveraging their complementary characteristics, higher navigation performance can be achieved compared to using any single system alone.
