Integrated Navigation for Autonomous Drone in GPS and GPS-Denied Environments

In this study, a novel robust navigation system for a drone in global positioning system (GPS) and GPS-denied environments is proposed. In general, the drone uses position and velocity information from GPS for guidance and control. However, GPS cannot be used in several environments; for example, GPS exhibits huge errors near buildings and trees, indoor environments. In such GPS-denied environments, a Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensor-based navigation system has generally been used. However, the LIDAR sensor also has a weakness, and it cannot be used in an open outdoor environment where GPS can be used. Therefore, it is advantageous to develop an integrated navigation system that operates seamlessly in both GPS and GPS-denied environments. In this study, an integrated navigation system for the drone using GPS and LIDAR was developed. The design of the navigation system is based on the extended Kalman filter, and the effectiveness of the developed system is verified by numerical simulation and experiment.