TABLE OF CONTENTS What is meant by "navigation"? How do global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), work? What is an inertial navigation system (INS)? This introductory chapter presents the basic concepts of navigation technology and provides a qualitative overview of the material covered in the body of the book. It introduces and compares the main navigation technologies and puts contemporary navigation techniques in a historical context.
Section 1.1 defines the concept of navigation and describes the two fundamental techniques that most navigation systems are based on: position fixing and dead reckoning. Section 1.2 provides a basic description of inertial navigation and discusses its pros and cons. Section 1.3 introduces radio navigation, covering both satellite and terrestrial systems. Section 1.4 discusses feature-matching techniques, such as terrain-referenced navigation (TRN). Finally, Section 1.5 discusses how different navigation technologies may be combined to produce the complete navigation system.
There is no universally agreed definition of navigation. The Concise Oxford Dictionary [1] defines navigation as "any of several methods of determining or planning a ship's or aircraft's position and course by geometry, astronomy, radio signals, etc." This encompasses two concepts. The first is the determination of the position and velocity of a moving body with respect to a known reference, sometimes known as the science of navigation. The second is the planning and maintenance of a course from one location to another, avoiding obstacles and collisions. This is sometimes known...
