In today’s world of online maps and travel directions delivered wirelessly to hand-held devices, getting from place to place requires little thought from most of us—which is a good thing, since accurate navigation can be tricky. Get your bearings with Mark Denny—an expert at explaining scientific concepts in non-technical language—in this all-encompassing look at the history and science of navigation. Denny’s tour kicks off with key facts about the earth and how its physical properties affect travel. He discusses cartography and early mapmakers, revealing fascinating tidbits such as how changes over time of the direction of true north, as well as of magnetic north, impacted navigation. Denny details the evolution of navigation from the days of coastal piloting to GPS and other modern-day technologies. He explains the scientific breakthroughs in accessible, amusing terms and provides an insightful look at their effects on societies, cultures, and human advancement. Throughout, Denny frames the long history of navigation with amazing tales of such people as Pytheas, an ancient Greek navigator, and Sir Francis Drake and of such discoveries as the magnetic compass and radio direction finding. Whether you have an interest in orienteering and geocaching or want to know more about the critical role navigation has played in human survival and progress since ancient people learned to use lodestones, The Science of Navigation is for you. With it you’ll finally understand the why of wayfinding.

This clear and accessible introduction to coastal navigation outlines most of the techniques of piloting that are still fundamental to safe navigation even with modern electronic aids. Step-by-step, the reader is guided from simple to more complex piloting solutions. In addition to dead-reckoning techniques, the author covers tides and currents and explains how to use LORAN C and GPS. There are numerous illustrations throughout the text and practice problems at the end of each chapter. Key Advantages: fully updated new edition, perfect for sail and power, clear layout and instructions, comprehensive overage of all aspects of coastal navigation, review questions and answers, and suitable for self-study and Coast Guard or other similar courses.

This newly revised and greatly expanded edition of the popular Artech House book Principles of GNSS, Inertial, and Multisensor Integrated Navigation Systems offers you a current and comprehensive understanding of satellite navigation, inertial navigation, terrestrial radio navigation, dead reckoning, and environmental feature matching . It provides both an introduction to navigation systems and an in-depth treatment of INS/GNSS and multisensor integration. The second edition offers a wealth of added and updated material, including a brand new chapter on the principles of radio positioning and a chapter devoted to important applications in the field. Other updates include expanded treatments of map matching, image-based navigation, attitude determination, acoustic positioning, pedestrian navigation, advanced GNSS techniques, and several terrestrial and short-range radio positioning technologies .. The book shows you how satellite, inertial, and other navigation technologies work, and focuses on processing chains and error sources. In addition, you get a clear introduction to coordinate frames, multi-frame kinematics, Earth models, gravity, Kalman filtering, and nonlinear filtering. Providing solutions to common integration problems, the book describes and compares different integration architectures, and explains how to model different error sources. You get a broad and penetrating overview of current technology and are brought up to speed with the latest developments in the field, including context-dependent and cooperative positioning.

Vaughan unveils the complicated and high-pressure world of air traffic controllers as they navigate technology and political and public climates, and shows how they keep the skies so safe. When two airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, Americans watched in uncomprehending shock as first responders struggled to react to the situation on the ground. Congruently, another remarkable and heroic feat was taking place in the air: more than six hundred and fifty air traffic control facilities across the country coordinated their efforts to ground four thousand flights in just two hours—an achievement all the more impressive considering the unprecedented nature of the task. In Dead Reckoning, Diane Vaughan explores the complex work of air traffic controllers, work that is built upon a close relationship between human organizational systems and technology and is remarkably safe given the high level of risk. Vaughan observed the distinct skill sets of air traffic controllers and the ways their workplaces changed to adapt to technological developments and public and political pressures. She chronicles the ways these forces affected their jobs, from their relationships with one another and the layouts of their workspace to their understanding of their job and its place in society. The result is a nuanced and engaging look at an essential role that demands great coordination, collaboration, and focus—a role that technology will likely never be able to replace. Even as the book conveys warnings about complex systems and the liabilities of technological and organizational innovation, it shows the kinds of problem-solving solutions that evolved over time and the importance of people.

The book is a collection of academician Yanzhong Zhang’s research papers published in English. It represents the development of aerospace systems engineering and information technology in China over the past 4 decades. Regarded as the crucial reference materials of related disciplines, it falls into three categories, namely, information technique, aeronautical engineering strategy issue of development, as well as PhD thesis.

Global positioning systems like GPS or the future European Galileo are influencing the world of navigation tremendously. Today, everybody is concerned with navigation even if unaware of this fact. Therefore, the interest in navigation is steadily increasing. This book provides an encyclopedic view of navigation. Fundamental elements are presented for a better understanding of the techniques, methods, and systems used in positioning and guidance. The book consists of three parts. Beside a historical review and maps, the first part covers mathematical and physical fundamentals. The second part treats the methods of positioning including terrestrial, celestial, radio- and satellite-based, inertial, image-based, and integrated navigation. Routing and guidance are the main topics of the third part. Applications on land, at sea, in the air, and in space are considered, followed by a critical outlook on the future of navigation. This book is designed for students, teachers, and people interested in entering the complex world of navigation.

This book features the latest theoretical results and techniques in the field of guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) of vehicles and aircraft. It covers a range of topics, including, but not limited to, intelligent computing communication and control; new methods of navigation, estimation, and tracking; control of multiple moving objects; manned and autonomous unmanned systems; guidance, navigation, and control of miniature aircraft; and sensor systems for guidance, navigation, and control. Presenting recent advances in the form of illustrations, tables, and text, it also provides detailed information of a number of the studies, to offer readers insights for their own research. In addition, the book addresses fundamental concepts and studies in the development of GNC, making it a valuable resource for both beginners and researchers wanting to further their understanding of guidance, navigation, and control.

A FASCINATING INVESTIGATION OF HOW WE NAVIGATE THE PHYSICAL WORLD, INNER NAVIGATION IS A LIVELY, ENGAGING ACCOUNT OF SUBCONSCIOUS MAPMAKING. Why are we so often disoriented when we come up from the subway? Do we really walk in circles when we lose our bearings in the wilderness? How -- and why -- do we get lost at all? In this surprising, stimulating book, Erik Jonsson, a Swedish-born engineer who has spent a lifetime exploring navigation over every terrain, from the crowded cities of Europe to the emptiness of the desert, gives readers extraordinary new insights into the human way-finding system. Written for the nonscientist, Inner Navigation explains the astonishing array of physical and psychological cues the brain uses to situate us in space and build its "cognitive maps" -- the subconscious maps it employs to organize landmarks. Humans, Jonsson explains, also possess an intuitive direction frame -- an internal compass -- that keeps these maps oriented (when it functions properly) and a dead-reckoning system that constantly updates our location on the map as we move through the world. Even the most cynical city-dweller will be amazed to learn how much of this innate sense we use every day as we travel across town or around the world. Both a scientific and a human story, Inner Navigation contains a rich assortment of real-life insights and examples of the navigational challenges we all face, no matter where or how we live. It's a book that is as provocative to ponder as it is delightful to lose yourself in. Don't worry: Erik Jonsson will help you find your bearings.

If you want to know where you are, you need a good clock. The surprising connection between time and placeais explored inaTime and Navigation- The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There, the companion book to the National Air and Space Museum exhibition of the same name. Today we use smartphones and GPS, but navigating has not always been so easy. The oldest "clock" is Earth itself, and the oldest means of keeping time came from observing changes in the sky. Early mariners like the Vikings accomplished amazing feats of navigation without using clocks at all. Pioneering seafarers in the Age of Exploration used dead reckoning and celestial navigation; later innovations such as sextants and marine chronometers honed these techniques by measuring latitude and longitude. When explorers turned their sights to the skies, they built on what had been learned at sea. For example, Charles Lindbergh used a bubble sextant on his record-breaking flights. World War II led to the development of new flight technologies, notably radio navigation, since celestial navigation was not suited for all-weather military operations. These forms of navigation were extended and enhanced when explorers began guiding spacecraft into space and across the solar system. Astronauts combined celestial navigation technology with radio transmissions. The development of the atomic clock revolutionized space flight because it could measure billionths of a second, thereby allowing mission teams to navigate more accurately. Scientists and engineers applied these technologies to navigation on earth to develop space-based time and navigation services such as GPS that is used every day by people from all walks of life. While the history of navigation is one of constant change and innovation, it is also one of remarkable continuity. Time and Navigation tells the story of navigation to help us understand where we have been and how we got there so that we can understand where we are going.