Observability-Constrained Resampling-Free Cubature Kalman Filter for GNSS/INS with Measurement Outliers

Integrating global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) with inertial navigation systems (INSs) has been widely recognized as an ideal solution for autonomous vehicle navigation. However, GNSSs suffer from disturbances and signal blocking inevitably, making the performance of GNSS/INSs degraded in the occurrence of measurement outliers. It has been proven that the sigma points-based Kalman filter (KF) performs better than an extended KF in cases where large prior uncertainty is present in the state estimation of a GNSS/INS. By modifying the sigma points directly, the resampling-free sigma point update framework (SUF) propagates more information excepting Gaussian moments of prescribed accuracy, based on which the resampling-free cubature Kalman filter (RCKF) was developed in our previous work. In order to enhance the adaptivity and robustness of the RCKF, the resampling-free SUF depending on dynamic prediction residue should be improved by suppressing the time-varying measurement outlier. In this paper, a robust observability-constrained RCKF (ROCRCKF) is proposed based on adaptive measurement noise covariance estimation and outlier detection, where the occurrence of measurement outliers is modelled by the Bernoulli variable and estimated with the state simultaneously. Experiments based on car-mounted GNSS/INSs are performed to verify the effectiveness of the ROCRCKF, and result indicates that the proposed algorithm outperforms the RCKF in the presence of measurement outliers, where the heading error and average root mean square error of the position are reduced from 1.96 & DEG; and 6.38 m to 0.27 & DEG; and 5.95 m, respectively. The ROCRCKF is robust against the measurement outliers and time-varying model uncertainty, making it suitable for the real-time implementation of GNSS/INSs in GNSS-challenged environments.

Automated summary

Integrating global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) with inertial navigation systems (INSs) is recognized as an ideal solution for autonomous vehicle navigation. However, GNSSs are prone to disturbances and signal blocking, which degrade the performance of GNSS/INSs in the presence of measurement outliers. This paper proposes a robust observability-constrained resampling-free cubature Kalman filter (ROCRCKF) that improves the adaptivity and robustness of the filter by suppressing time-varying measurement outliers. Experimental results show that the ROCRCKF outperforms the existing method, reducing heading error and average root mean square error of position.