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The Air Force’s Latest GPS Alternative: Earth’s Magnetic Fields
- vlovich123 6y ago> They showed that magnetic field readings can be accurate to ten meters, only slightly inferior to GPS, which is accurate down to three meters GPS is accurate to within 30 cm. My old team at Apple did this for indoor positioning. The challenge was that the mag readings can be highly variable indoors & don't have enough texture outdoors. It's interesting they've managed to get it down to 10m. That could be pretty valuable when you integrate it as part of your overall SLAM algorithm & to reduce the overall power requirements. Instead of having GPS always on, primarily use mag + IMU dead reckoning. Then strobe the GPS every minute or so to get a more accurate fix (GPS signal generally can reacquire within a minute of a previous successful reading).
- narwally 6y agoI know the navy is also working on a gps alternative for their nuclear submarines. They currently use inertial navigation, but they still have to surface periodically to recalibrate it using radio signals. Ideally they would eliminate the need to surface for navigation, especially while operating underneath Arctic ice where surfacing is dangerous and not always possible.