Inertial Navigation

Knowing where you are without looking

An interactive lesson with 6 steps, about 5 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• Inertial navigation integrates acceleration twice to get position.
• A constant bias gives an error $\frac12 b t^2$, growing as time squared.
• Tiny tilts make gravity leak into horizontal readings.

Steps

1. Dead reckoning with sensors
2. Twice integrated
3. Drift
4. Squared growth
5. Which way is down?
6. A hundredth of a degree