A Submarine Navigator for the 218‘ Century

K. M. Hays, R. G. Schmidt, W. A. Wilson, J. D. Campbell, D. W. Heckman and M. P. Gokhale, The Boeing

Company, Battle ManagementKommand, Control 8 Communications and Strategic Systems, Anaheim, CA

ABSTRACT
North Pole Transit. A milestone in the history of
Recent advances in technology on multiple fronts will navigation was achieved on August 3,1958 when the
enable new and improved approaches to precision submarine USS Nautilus transited the earth’s north
navigation of submarines. pole. The Nautilus found its way under the polar ice
using a modified Autonetics (now Boeing BMC3&SS)
Improvements in interferometricfiber optic gyro N6A inertial navigator.
(IFOG) technology have made it possible to use
IFOGs in a high accuracy navigator. The use of
spherical gimbals for improved temperature control
and inertial instrument error autocompensation has
been made practical by computer-controlled
machining. The use of sonar in certain covert
situations will become more prevalent, facilitated by
lower power sonar systems and advances in signal
processing technology. Satellite based altimetry will
make it possible to compensate for gravity deflections
using lookup tables. Satellite attimetry will also allow
us to make tables of gravity anomaly and ocean depth
available to the overall navigation process.

Using these advances, it is possible to use measured

gravity anomaly from the ship’s IMU and sonar
soundings from its sonar array to estimate and correct
navigation position errors. A navigator is currently
being developed at Boeing that will incorporatethese
new developments as well as the traditional velocity
log, pressure depth meter, and Global Positioning
System aiding.
The new inertial navigator outputs, as well as the set
of currently available navigational aid outputs, are
combined in a series of filters that allow for the
detection and removal of transient errors to fumish the
best available position, velocity and attitude to the
ship’s systems.
LEGACY
The First SINS. The development of the first Ships
Inertial Navigation System (SINS), the MK 2 MOD 0
was accomplished during the late 195Os, a period of
technological development in the industry that may be
best described as revolutionary. Nuclear power for
propulsion, solid fuel for rocket motors, and inertial
guidance for missiles and submarines were new
engineering achievements. The transistor was
replacing the vacuum tube and digital computers were
making analog computers obsolete.
Figure 1. Photocopy of USS Nautilus ship’s
log showing position at the North Pole
Kalman Position Fix Processing. In the March
1960 edition of the Transactions of the ASME, R. E.
Kalman published the first description of what was to
be known thereafter as the Kalman filter[’]. In the
early 1960s the processing power of digital computers
was adequate for the real-time computational load of
small Kalman filters useful for navigational position fDc
processing.
By late 1963, Autonetics had programmed and tested
a position u
fc processor employing a Kalman filter that
was deployed and tested on submarines with SINS
systems. The new filter made much better use of the
external position reference data that the submarine
could gather when it occasionally came to periscope
depth to expose an antenna, compared to earlier
techniques. These filters enabled more accurate
computation and compensation of the inertial

0-7803-7251-4/02/$10.00 0 2002 IEEE 179

navigation system's drift rates and biases allowing an
extension of the time interval between resets.
MINI SINS. Miniature SINS (MINI SINS) were
deployed by Autonetics in dual systems (DMINS) on
attack submarines in the 1970s. These systems were
based on gas bearing suspension spinning rotor
gyros. The MINI SINS systems also made more
extensive use of Kalman filtering techniques than the
original SINS systems.
ESGNs. Finally, the successful development of solid
spherical rotor precision gyros with electrostatic
suspensions (ESGs) was achieved in the 1970s. The
ESG's essentially frictionless high-vacuum
suspension allowed a 216,000 RPM rotor spin rate.
The resultant high angular momentum and motional
stability enabled a further advance in the precision
performance of inertial navigators for strategic missile
submarines.
Electrostatic Gyro Navigator (ESGN) systems were
initially deployed in 1983. Taking advantage of
progress in digital computers, they also used large
Kalman fitters for both system calibration and position
reset processing. The ESGN systems continue to
represent the state-of-the-art in precision navigation of
Submersible Ship Ballistic missile Submarines
(SSBNs) to this day.
INTRODUCTION
IFOGs for Precision Navigation. An Interferometric
Fiber Optic Gyro (IFOG) is a rotation rate sensor with
no rotating mechanical parts. IFOGs are often
configured to provide angular-output by using digital
electronics to do the mathematical integration. An
IFOG senses rotation rate about its input axis by
forming an interference pattern between two nearly
coherent counter-rotating light beams generated by an
180
internal light source and beam splitter. The light
beams travel through a shared optical fiber several
kilometers long wound into a coil. The physical
rotation rate causes a very small (typically less than a
nanoradian) proportionate phase shift of the
interference pattern due to the Sagnac effect. The
measurement of such small phase shifts requires
special phase shift modulationtechniques.
A dozen years ago, there was no indication that an
Interferometric Fiber Optic Gyro (IFOG) could meet
the stringent performance requirementsof a strategic
submarine navigator, nor was there any such
projection for the future. But by 1994, IFOG technical
papers indicated a range of possible improvements
that could increase the performance levels to those
required by a strategic submarine system[21.These
improvementswere enabled by advancements in
polarization-maintainingfiber technology, solid state
laser technology, thermal control of fiber coils, and the
advent and proliferation of erbium-doped fiber
amplifiers.
This is fortunate since the ESG is the most critical and
costly component of current SSBN inertial navigation
systems. ESGs are extremely expensive to
manufacture and repair. Furthermore, the ESG has
now been in production for more than 25 years and
system-level electronic components are difficult to
replace because they are rapidly becoming obsolete.
Conversely, IFOGs make use of modern fiber optical
and electronics technologies and have no moving
parts. During the production phase, IFOGs are
expected to cost less than the repair of the present
ESGs. But, an IFOG will not be a one-for-one
replacement for an ESG in a precision navigation
system. IFOGs have very different operating
principals than ESGs and will accordingly require a
new mechanization approach as discussed later.
element (length x diameter)
DfOduCt and volume
drift by a factor of of bias, scale factor, &

requires precision cost of fiber expected to
machining drop
Loss of technology New technology attracts
base is imminent I new engineers
I EM Log. Errors in the ship’s position or velocity tend
Micromachined Accelerometers. Accelerometers
based on flexure-suspended proof masses have
proliferated. Simple, inexpensive and low-precision
silicon and polysilicon accelerometershave made
their way into such high-volume applications as
automotive airbag deployment sensors in recent
years[31. Their precision predecessors, typically made
of micromachinedquartz, have been in existence for
over two decades.
A precision quartz accelerometer includes a thin proof
mass with pickoff capacitor plates and attached
electromagneticforce rebalance coils, suspended
between opposing top and bottom magnet stators.
lntemal heaters and sensors and/or the
accelerometer‘s mounting environment control and
limit variations in the temperature. This reduces
errors due to thermal effects in various mechanical
components and in critical interface electronics.
The electrical capacitance, and hence the separation
between the accelerometer’sproof mass and each
stator plate is held constant by a feedback loop that
measures the capacitances and controls the currents
in the rebalance coils. This approach gives excellent
linearity and dynamic range. Accelerometers of this
design are employed in today’s ESGN systems and in
other inertial measurement systems used for marine
navigation.
Damping and Reset Mechanisms. All inertial
navigation systems, including the Fiber Optic Gyro
Navigator (FOGN) systems contemplated for use on
SSBNs in the future, have small but inevitable noise
sources and imperfections that cause navigational
inaccuraciesto grow with time. The rate at which an
inertial navigation system’s navigational errors would
grow following calibration and absent any extemal
references would cause it to exceed acceptable limits
well before completion of a typical patrol.
Independent external references must therefore be
used to reset or augment the inertial system’s
estimates of position, velocity, and of its own non-
idealities. External references such as the ship’s EM
log (water velocity sensor), its pressure depth sensor,
181
the Global Positioning System (GPS), various sonar
data, and data from various kinds of maps can all be
used to advantage in limiting navigational error growth
and are generally utilized. Dependence on extemal
references that could compromise the ship’s
covertness will be greatly reduced with the planned
FOGN system design, compared to currently-
deployed systems.
to drive coupled sinusoidal variations in these errors
as a consequence of the change in the diredion of
gravity vector due to the earth’s curvature. These
Schuler oscillations have a characteristic period of
about 84 minutes. An electromagneticwater velocity
sensor (EM log) along the keel of the ship is
commonly used to damp the system velocity in order
to attenuate the growing Schuler frequency
oscillations in velocity and position.
The EM log sensor is subject to ocean current errors
and ship’s side slip errors as well as miscalibration of
the sensor. When the ship is not turning and the
ocean current is constant, it is possible to use biased
EM log reference data to damp out inertial navigation
system velocity errors that oscillate at the Schuler
frequency. However, when the ship tums or enters or
leaves an ocean current stream, large transients in
the EM log reference velocity that cause degradation
of the overall system velocity are seen.
These transient events are difficult to model using
gaussian techniques, which makes it difficult to create
a filter to reject them. However, the difference
between the biased reference velocity and the system
velocity can be monitored. It can be assumed that the
ship has encountered a large change in ocean current
or has turned with a badly calibrated sensor when a
change in the difference occurs faster than a normal
Schuler frequency oscillation.
As it takes several minutes to make this
determination, the ability to retroactively remove the
effect of damping prior to the detection of the transient
is required to remove the effect of the eatly stages of
the transient on the system’s accuracy. With the
memory capacity and processing power available in
modem digital computers this is readily possible.
Using this technique can greatly improve the accuracy
of the system’s overall estimate of the ship’s velocity.
GPS. The satellite-based Global Positioning System
(GPS) provides fix informationwith an accuracy of
several feet over the entire earth’s surface in most
cases. To get a GPS fix, submarines must be very
close to the surface because the employed radio
frequencies are strongly attenuated by water. The
accuracy of GPS would be more than sufficient for the
needs of SSBN navigation if covertness and reliability
during wartime scenarios were not significant
concerns.
The ship uses the independent position information to
reset its position estimates and to adjust its calibration
of the inertial measurement system’s predictable
imperfections. To do this, a Kalman reset filter is
typically used. Without another independent, absolute
position reference, any submarine with a less-than-
perfect inertial navigation system, even a FOGN
system of the future, must periodically rise near to the
surface and expose an antenna to get a GPS fix.
But, the nuclear deterrent value of an SSBN is
magnified by a potential foe’s uncertainty as to its
location. Because GPS fu<es potentially reveals the
submarine’s location, in wartime they are obtained
only occasionally (several days), with inertial
navigation used between fixes.
Future FOGN navigation systems will continue to
make use of GPS at times when covertness is not at a
premium. In light of the above concem and given the
additional possibility that signals from GPS satellites
might be jammed by an enemy, other sources of
independent position reference information such as
map-based gravity assisted passive navigation and
sonar bathymetry are being developed.
Sonar. Current navigational sonar systems (NSSs)
support navigation systems by providing independent
depth and velocity measurements. Depth is
measured by measuring the travel time for a sonar
pulse to reach the bottom and retum while velocity
can be measured by two fundamental techniques:
observation of the Doppler shift in the returns and
performing sonar correlation processing[41 between
individual hydrophone elements. The NSS generally
has covertness requirements. Covertness is currently
obtained by using very short transmissions, by
transmitting minimum power into the water, and by
providing low side-lobe levels for the transmitted
pulse.
Current technologies and those expected during the
21‘‘ century promise significant improvements in
NSSs. These improvements include increases in
covertness, submarine operating envelope, and NSS
measurement accuracy as well as bottom slope
measurement capability and reduced cost for the NSS
itself.
The first approach to increased covertness is the use
of more covert waveforms. Current NSSs generally
182
use short fixed frequency transmissions. But, since
most active intercept systems are fast Fourier
Transform (FFT)-based and search for up to many
thousands of frequencies and pulse lengths,
introducing pseudo-random noise (PRN) waveforms
can defeat this search strategy. Use of PRN
waveforms requires more bandwidth than current NSS
systems exhibit. But, recently developed transducer
technologies are more efficient over wider frequency
bands in comparison to cumently deployed
transducers.
Another approach is to reduce transmission side lobe
levels and to use a narrower main beam. Increasing
the number of transducer elements in the projector
can reduce side lobes, but this can become cost
limiting since the reduction level is a function of the
square of number of transducer elements for two
dimensional arrays.
A third covertness enhancing approach is full control
of the transmission direction. This can be
accomplished by beam forming. Current NSS
projectors generally project acoustic energy
downward relative to the submarine. A steered beam
could be directed downward when the submarine is
not level and away from the location of a potential
threat receiver such as another submarine, a ship, or
a shore installation.
The operating envelope of current NSSs is also
limited by the submarine‘s operations, including the
submarine’s attitude and speed, and by the local
ocean depth. The restrictions on the NSS usage due
to submarine attitude can be overcome by beam
forming as described earlier. Velocity measurement
using correlation processing limits the current NSS
because a submarine’s hydrophones must be
separated by a distance proportional to its lateral
speed to do correlation processing. This effect can
cause the necessary array size to become excessive
when the submarine is traveling at high speeds. This
problem can be partially overcome by making the
pulse pairs required for correlation processing closer
together, up to the limit imposed by time spreading of
the return pulses reflected back from large portions of
the ocean floor. Placing additional hydrophones at
greater separation distances can greatly relieve the
resulting velocity restriction.
Measurement accuracy for correlation velocity
measurement can be accomplished by: increasing
the number of hydrophone pairs for which correlations
are processed and by processing correlation functions
that depend on time separation. The first of these
techniques requires more elaborate receiver arrays
and many more hydrophones, while the second
requires a significant increase in sonar signal
processing capability. Using transducers for both
transmit and receive and innovative array designs can
achieve the first of these and the use of modem array
processors such as the PowerPC 7400, and whatever
is sure to follow, can achieve the second. The
potentialincrease in measurement accuracy for
correlation velocity measurement is currently being
studied by simulation at Boeing.
The ability to measure the bottom slope in addition to
bottom depth is advantageous in regions of great
bottom variability such as littorals. The ability to
measure bottom slope can also be useful for m a p
based navigation as described later. Bottom slope
measurement can be accomplished by steering the
transmitted beam in addition to performing signal
processing to sense the shape of the reflected beam,
i.e., beam forming on the retum. Using the same
array for both functions will make this affordable.
The final future NSS issue is affordability. Cost can
be reduced through broad use of Non-Developmental
Items/Commercial Off-the-shelf (NDVCOTS)
components and integration of the NSS transmit and
receive functions. Aside from the transducer array
itself, the NSS could be constructed with essentially
all NDI/COTS components. The only exception is the
availability of analog front-end electronics suitable for
future NSSs, however only minor changes to current
products would be necessary.
Gravity Maps. Mass attraction from geographical
features such as sea mounts, escarpments, and
trenches causes local gravity to differ from the
reference ellipsoid model. The deflection of the plumb
bob from reference ellipsoid vertical is called
'deflection." Deflection is indistinguishable from
horizontal acceleration to an inertial navigation system
(INS). The horizontal (level) channels of an INS's
level channels are thus sensitive to deflection.
Deflection at Schuler-band frequencies causes
velocity errors, whereas position errors result when it
occurs below the Schuler-band. An uncompensated
low-frequency deflection of one arc minute will result
in a position error of one nautical mile.
The INS is compensated for deflection using a lookup
table or a gridded map. Errors in the deflection map
comprise a large part of a precision navigator's error
budget.
The vertical component of the local mass attraction is
called the "anomaly." In submarine INS applications
anomaly causes errors in vertical acceleration
183
measurements. But, because the submarine's depth
is an external vertical reference, no compensation for
anomaly-induced errors is necessary because the
INS's vertical channel is heavily damped using the
submarine's depth gauge. Recent studies at Boeing
have shown that anomaly can actually be utilizedto
aid the precision navigator by serving as a fix source.
Anomaly is measured using the INS accelerometers
and depth gauge. The anomaly measurements are
used to estimate and correct INS errors by locating
position on anomaly maps. These passive "gravity
fixes" are ideal for submarine applications since they
are entirely covert.
PRECISIONNAVIGATOR
Improved IFOGs. Honeywell has been working on
IFOG development under contract with Boeing and
with the U.S. Navy. The goal is to develop IFOGs
with appropriate performance and size for precision
marine navigation. The successful progress to date is
embodied in the Advanced Development Model II
(ADM II) IFOG. The primary ADM II goals were to
reduce the Angle Random Walk (ARW) to strategic
navigation system requirements, and reduce the
electronics size such that three gyros will fit into a
Boeing-designed platform's form factor. Figure 3
shows an ADM I1IFOG that met the size requirement
by combining the optical components and electrical
circuits in one package.
Figure 3. ADM-II IFOG
Instrument level tests of the nine completed ADM II
gyros as well as system level tests using three ADM II
IFOGs mounted in a mechanized platform with three
ac~elerometers[~]l indicate that the ARW is within
reach of the SSBN accuracy requirement. Figure 4
shows some performance data gathered from a
system used to test ADM II IFOGs in a navigation
configuration.
Figure 4. Performance data from advanced
prototype system-level fiber-optic gyro navigator
using ADM II gyros. Horizontal axis is in hours.
A set of successors to the ADM II gyros, the ADM
III/Block I IFOGs, are in development at this writing.
The ADM Ill will be designed to meet system level
thermal stability, ARW, and form factor constraints
appropriate to the advanced spherical gimbal platform
described below. Figure 5 shows the current and
expected comparative progression of navigation error
performance of deployed systems and the FOGN
system.
e Error
Fast Attack Submarine (SSN)
Requirement
Limit due solely to ARW of Ring
Laser Qyros
Realized Tactical ESGN
Performance
I Limit due to ARW of ADM II IFOGs i
SSBN Requirement
Realized Strategic ESQNlExpected
Strategic FOQN Performance
Expected Limit due to ARW of
Production F O G S
Small Error
Figure 5. Comparative Perfonnance of
Navigation Systems
EMAs. Because submarine navigation systems are
heavily damped, the performance available from
present-day Electromagnetic Accelerometers (EMAs)
184
is adequate for use in a future precision FOGN
system. The A I 88 EMA, which is a temperature-
controlled magnetic force-rebalance accelerometer
with micromachined quartz flexures and proof mass,
is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Electromagnetic Accelerometer
By taking advantage of the improved, thermally stable
environment that will be provided by the planned
FOGN‘s inertial instrument platform it may well be
possible to use less costly accelerometers that do not
include individualintemal temperature regulation.
Spherical Gimbals. Modern computer-guided
machining techniques have made possible a spherical
gimbal system that can provide the FOGN’s inertial
instruments with a more stable thermal environment
than what had previously been possible. Figure 7
shows a pattially-disassembled set of nested spheres
that comprise such a gimbal set.
The innermost sphere in the gimbal set will be the
mount for the FOGN system’s IFOGs and EMAs, each
of which will have an appropriately shaped cover to
complete the spherical surface. This spherical
platform will rotate inside a second spherical shell,
separated by a very close, uniform gap. This second
sphere will, in turn, be contained inside a third sphere
separated from it by a similar gap.
The small inter-sphere gaps effectively limit
uncontrolled thermal convection and yet provide
adequate thermal conduction between the spheres.
Initial data show that the inertial instrument mount
temperatures will vary less than 0.05 OC as the
spheres rotate under the developed FOGN
autocompensation mechanization policy.

Figure 7. Spherical Gimbal Set
(about 14" diameter)
Modem torque motors and slip rings designed
specifically for this application are used to move the
spheres and maintain electrical connections to the
outside world as the spheres rotate. Maintainability
features such as a common torquer and slip ring
design for the entire gimbal set, as well as a half-
spheres that can be disassembled in the field have
already been designed into this next-generation
gimbal approach.
Mechanization. To attenuate effects due to errors in
estimates of such things as IFOG angular rate bias,
scale factor, and input axis misalignment,the inner
instrument mount platform will continuously proceed
through rotational and other perturbative motions
under normal operation.
Autocompensation Policy. The envisioned system-
level autocompensation motion for the FOGN system
includes sets of fixed-rate gyro platform rotations
about a horizontal axis. Each of the three mutually
perpendicular IFOG input axes forms an angle of
54.73" = tan-' & with this horizontal platform
rotation axis. The spherical platform's rotation
direction is reversed following each set of six
complete revolutions.
In addition, the horizontal axis about which the
platform revolves is also precessed about the local
vertical axis at one-third of the platform's rate about
the horizontal axis. This vertical precession is
reversed after each set of two complete revolutions.
The inner and outer rotations are phased so that
reversals about one of these axes occur at intervals
halfway between reversals about the other. As a
185
consequence of these rotations, each inertial
instrument experiences an identical amount of
gravitational influence (g and g2> over each complete
cycle.
Finally a constant, additional precession rate e,
is
imposed about the vertical axis, defined as
+
8, = (Ahn C&,,)sine,, where A,, is the
longitude, 8, ab,,,
is the latitude and is the
earth's rotation rate. This Foucault precession
effectively makes the average angular rate about the
vertical axis over a complete cycle equal zero with
respect to inertial space.
The net result of these motions is a reduction in the
impacts of several types of possible small errors or
drifts as is seen by considering the case of gyro bias
error. If an IFOG were to misreport its rotation rate by
a small but constant amount there would be little or no
net error because, under this autocompensation
policy, each gyro spends equal amounts of time with
its input axis oriented in opposing directions. The 3:l
ratio of the horizontal and azimuthial axis rotation
rates also facilitates identification and removal of a
large class of slowly-varying inertial instrument effects
by fitting the error signatures to simple waveforms
related to the autocompensation policy and its
harmonics using a coherent Kalman filter.
Earth Rate Decoupling. Residual coupling of
horizontal components of the earth's angular rate with
the above basic autocompensation policy can still
result in some earth rate-driven errors. The Earth's
rotational rate can give rise to navigational position
error growth by coupling through gyro scale factor
errors and misalignmentscaused by such things as
creeping in machined metals and gimbal servo
nonidealities
To further reduce these errors, the earlier
autocompensationmotion described above can be
perturbed by adding latitude-dependent,small
amplitude (mill radian) harmonics to reduce the
correlation between earth rate and the effect of gyro
scale factor and misalignment estimates.
Measured laboratory results using a platform with this
perturbed autocompensationpolicy and large,
intentionally introduced IFOG scale factor trends have
recently validated some earlier modeling results.
They indicate that the introduction of small additional
motions such as these policy perturbations is effective
in reducing navigational position errors driven by the
earth’s rotational rate acting through specific types of
instrument errors.
Gravity and Bathymetric Maps. Maps useful in
aiding compensation of marine precision navigators
are derived from a variety of sources. Long
wavelength gravity (anomaly and vertical deflection)
maps are obtained from satellite altimetry. Short
wavelength gravity is generated from survey ship
gravimeter data. Short and long wavelength data are
combined to form maps for high-accuracy submarine
applications over very broad regions of the ocean.
Bathymetric maps are also derived from survey ship
sonar data gathered over more limited regions.
Satellite Altimetry-Based Gravity Maps. Maps
generated from satellite altimetry data can be used to
compensate the low frequency deflection that affects
INS position error. Such maps are created by first
using satellite tracking to estimate a satellite’s position
and altitude above the earth reference ellipsoid. The
satellitethen sends a microwave radar pulse to the
sea surface. The return time of the reflected pulse is
used to calculate the distance from the satellite to the
sea surface. The Sea Surface Height (SSH) is then
calculated and results from many satellite tracks are
averaged to attenuate time-varying effects such as
tides, currents, atmospheric conditions, and
instrument noise. Gravity maps of anomaly and
vertical deflection are derived from the averaged
geoid heights using geodesy techniques.
Satellite altimeters have high registration accuracy at
long spatial wavelengths and provide relatively dense
and uniform worldwide coverage. However today’s
altimeters resolve gravity features down to only 25 or
30 kilometers. [6*71 For submarine applications, higher
spatial resolution is needed in order to compensate
velocity for deflection.
Combination with Survey Ship Data. Gravimeter
data gathered using survey ships are used to get
short wavelengths corresponding to the Schuler band
where the INS velocity is sensitive. Gravity deflection
maps for high accuracy submarine applications are
made by combining long wavelengths from altimetry
and short wavelengths from surveys. Ship surveys
are expensive and are limited in the extent and
density of coverage. As altimeter maps become
increasingly accurate, they will become more common
in submarine navigation.
Future Navigators and Satellite Altimetry. Boeing
has performed an analysis to evaluate the feasibility of
using an altimetly-only map to compensate for gravity
anomaly and deflection. The analysis was performed
186
on ship navigation data gathered near the Blake
Escarpment where there is large gravity deflection,
particularly in the east-west direction. Comparative
results of the analysis indicate that today’s satellite
maps (“Altimetry-only”) can already provide adequate
deflection data to obtain relatively good position
performance, comparable to the position accuracy
obtained using full tactical gravity maps. This
situation can be expected to improve further with
advances in satellite altimetry. The portion of the
error budget of future IFOG-based navigators that
must be allocated to map errors caused by gravity
deflection survey ship location errors will be
accordingIy reduced.
Fusion of Reference Data. The presence of multiple
sources for the same information presents an
opportunity to improve the accuracy of the overall
navigation system of the future. The FOGN inertial
navigator provides a basis for navigation with very
slow error propagation. This will allow thorough
smoothing and filtering of extemal reference sources
before their data are used.
Overlapping Data Examples. The water velocity
sensor, NSS velocity, and GPS velocity all give
measures of velocity. Gravity anomaly measurements,
NSS bathymetry, and GPS measurements are
correlated with position error. The sonar options are
rarely used for submarine navigation due to the need
for covert operation. However, with the advent of
lower power systems this may not be as large an
issue in the future.
Gravity-Assisted Passive Navigation. The
difference between the vertical acceleration sensed by
the accelerometers and the acceleration predicted by
an anomaly map can also be used to form an estimate
of position error. [*I The effectiveness of the Gravity-
Assisted Passive Navigation (GAPN) approach
depends to some degree on the data averaging and
map-matching algorithms and filters that are
employed. The vertical acceleration measurement
also depends heavily on the availability of good
pressure depth readings.
Boeing has studied GAPN for several years and
obtained very positive results by applying it to data
gathered by surface ships and by SSBNs. Figure 8
shows the relative performance of an existing ESGN
system at sea, without resets over a period of several
weeks (upper graph), and using GAPN-based resets
(lower graph). The relative position error levels are
indicated on the vertical axis. The constant red lines
are indicative of the maximum tolerable error level.
GAPN clearly provides position reset data sufficient to
limit position error growth. It has the additional benefit
of being entirely covert.
Data Fusion and Data Reliability. The accuracies of
each of the available position and/or velocity
measuring systems can differ greatly. Combining
accurate information with information subject to larger
errors generally does not improve the overall
accuracy, so the best approach to combining the data
M(Y)
Figure 8. Radial Position Error Growth
without GPS Resets. Lower chart is with
GAPN, upper chart is without GAPN.
is the use of a hierarchy in which the data from each
system am used in order of estimated accuracy and
availability. For example, when NSS-derived velocity
with respect to the bottom is available, the EM log
would not be used to damp the system velocity.
Instead the NSS data is used to damp the system
velocities and the EM log is used to estimate ocean
currents in the event that the NSS velocity becomes
unavailable.
As another example, consider that a ship's depth
meter requires periodic maintenance and becomes
unavailable for short periods. The combination of NSS
bathymetry and bathymetric maps can provide a
depth reference during this period. When NSS
bathymetry and the ship's depth meter are
simultaneously available, the difference between
predicted soundings and NSS bathymetry can be
used to estimate position error in a manner similar to
GAPN.
Transient Detection and Removal. When the
solutions of two subsystems differ by more than the
expected amount then an error in a measurement is
likely. The assignment of this error to a subsystem is
based upon the probability of a transient occurring in
that subsystem. For example, when a velocity log
measurement suddenly begins to differ from the
inertial velocity, we might assume a transient in the
reference velocity system has occurred since inertial
errors normally change very slowly. If we keep a
short time history of the system errors for the inertial
187
system both with and without reference velocity use,
we may remove the error caused by the reference
velocity transient some time before it can be detected.
How to Choose What to Use. This process of
choosing the best subsystem requires the use of
multiple filters, one of which is periodically initialized to
the best system filter and is then extrapolated without
the suspect subsystem inputs. For example, the
position error estimates due to acceleration and
bathymetry vary with the rate of change of the
anomaly or the depth. Covariance matrix elements
can be combined to give a figure of merit for each
solution. The subsystem-derived estimate should be
applied to the system only when its figure of merit
indicates that the estimated position error variance is
less than the equivalent variance of the natural
system propagation.
When the system model is simple as in the case of
the fiber optic gyro navigator, the multiple filter
processing is not an onerous task given modem
digital computers. The logic of data fusion can be
seen to depend upon a good understanding of the
subsystem behavior. The design technique for a
system is well defined but each system will culminate
in a different design.
REMARKS
CONCLUDING
With predictable improvements in IFOG technology
and other types of sensors and transducers used for
navigation, a broad range of practical options for more
robust precision navigation algorithms is becoming
available. Wflh the tremendous increases in computer
processing power and memory, it becomes both
possible and desirable to merge the relative
advantages of multiple navigation sources into the
precision navigators of the future.
Boeing, in collaboration with others, has created the
current state of the art in SSBN navigation and is
continuing to pursue development of a IFOG-based
precision navigator that will also make use of multiple
navigation sources in a deliberate way, to give the
best available future performance in terms of
accuracy, covertness, robustness, and affordability.
Initial characterization of the navigation performance
of ADM II IFOGs was completed in 2001. Delivery of
the successor ADM Ill IFOGs will be completed in
2003, followed by the production version in early
2006. The first fiber optic gyro-based navigator for
precision navigation of strategic missile submarines is
planned for deployment in 2009.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Boeing Company and the authors gratefully
acknowledge the continued support of the U.S. Navy.
The authors also wish to thank Mr. R. Dahlquist for his
insights and comments.

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