The TransNav 2011 Symposium held at the Gdynia Maritime University, Poland in June 2011 has brought together a wide range of participants from all over the world. The program has offered a variety of contributions, allowing to look at many aspects of the navigational safety from various different points of view. Topics presented and discussed at th

This, the second edition of the hugely practical reference and handbook describes kinematic, static and dynamic Global Positioning System theory and applications. It is primarily based upon source-code descriptions of the KSGSoft program developed by the author and his colleagues and used in the AGMASCO project of the EU. This is the first book to report the unified GPS data processing method and algorithm that uses equations for selectively eliminated equivalent observations.

This book discusses all the major nature-inspired algorithms with a focus on their application in the context of solving navigation and routing problems. It also reviews the approximation methods and recent nature-inspired approaches for practical navigation, and compares these methods with traditional algorithms to validate the approach for the case studies discussed. Further, it examines the design of alternative solutions using nature-inspired techniques, and explores the challenges of navigation and routing problems and nature-inspired metaheuristic approaches.

This book captures the latest results and techniques for cooperative localization and navigation drawn from a broad array of disciplines. It provides the reader with a generic and comprehensive view of modeling, strategies, and state estimation methodologies in that fields. It discusses the most recent research and novel advances in that direction, exploring the design of algorithms and architectures, benefits, and challenging aspects, as well as a potential broad array of disciplines, including wireless communication, indoor localization, robotics, emergency rescue, motion analysis, etc.

This book summarizes the research advances in star identification that the author’s team has made over the past 10 years, systematically introducing the principles of star identification, general methods, key techniques and practicable algorithms. It also offers examples of hardware implementation and performance evaluation for the star identification algorithms. Star identification is the key step for celestial navigation and greatly improves the performance of star sensors, and as such the book include the fundamentals of star sensors and celestial navigation, the processing of the star catalog and star images, star identification using modified triangle algorithms, star identification using star patterns and using neural networks, rapid star tracking using star matching between adjacent frames, as well as implementation hardware and using performance tests for star identification. It is not only valuable as a reference book for star sensor designers and researchers working in pattern recognition and other related research fields, but also as teaching resource for senior postgraduate and graduate students majoring in information processing, computer science, artificial intelligence, aeronautics and astronautics, automation and instrumentation. Dr. Guangjun Zhang is a professor at the School of Instrumentation Science and Opto-electronics Engineering, Beihang University, China and also the Vice President of Beihang University, China

Data assimilation is an approach that combines observations and model output, with the objective of improving the latter. This book places data assimilation into the broader context of inverse problems and the theory, methods, and algorithms that are used for their solution. It provides a framework for, and insight into, the inverse problem nature of data assimilation, emphasizing why and not just how. Methods and diagnostics are emphasized, enabling readers to readily apply them to their own field of study. Readers will find a comprehensive guide that is accessible to nonexperts; numerous examples and diverse applications from a broad range of domains, including geophysics and geophysical flows, environmental acoustics, medical imaging, mechanical and biomedical engineering, economics and finance, and traffic control and urban planning; and the latest methods for advanced data assimilation, combining variational and statistical approaches.

The TransNav 2011 Symposium held at the Gdynia Maritime University, Poland in June 2011 has brought together a wide range of participants from all over the world. The program has offered a variety of contributions, allowing to look at many aspects of the navigational safety from various different points of view. Topics presented and discussed at the Symposium were: navigation, safety at sea, sea transportation, education of navigators and simulator-based training, sea traffic engineering, ship's manoeuvrability, integrated systems, electronic charts systems, satellite, radio-navigation and anti-collision systems and many others. This book is part of a series of six volumes and provides an overview of Methods and Algorithms in Navigation and is addressed to scientists and professionals involved in research and development of navigation, safety of navigation and sea transportation.

This reference and handbook describes theory, algorithms and applications of the Global Positioning System (GPS/Glonass/Galileo/Compass). It is primarily based on source-code descriptions of the KSGsoft program developed at the GFZ in Potsdam. The theory and algorithms are extended and verified for a new development of a multi-functional GPS/Galileo software. Besides the concepts such as the unified GPS data processing method, the diagonalisation algorithm, the adaptive Kalman filter, the general ambiguity search criteria, and the algebraic solution of variation equation reported in the first edition, the equivalence theorem of the GPS algorithms, the independent parameterisation method, and the alternative solar radiation model reported in the second edition, the modernisation of the GNSS system, the new development of the theory and algorithms, and research in broad applications are supplemented in this new edition. Mathematically rigorous, the book begins with the introduction, the basics of coordinate and time systems and satellite orbits, as well as GPS observables, and deals with topics such as physical influences, observation equations and their parameterisation, adjustment and filtering, ambiguity resolution, software development and data processing and the determination of perturbed orbits.

This thesis investigates robot navigation algorithms in unknown 2 dimensional environments with the aim of improving performance. The algorithms which perform such navigation are called Bug Algorithms [1,30,62]. Existing algorithms are implemented on a robot simulation system called EyeSim [7] and their performances are measured and analyzed. Similarities and differences in the Bug Family are explored particularly in relation to the methods used to guarantee termination. Seven methods used to guarantee termination in the existing literature are noted and form the basis of the new Bug algorithms: OneBug, MultiBug, LeaveBug, Bug1+ and SensorBug. A new method is created which restricts the leave points to vertices of convex obstacles. SensorBug is a new algorithm designed to use range sensors and with three performance criteria in mind: data gathering frequency, amount of scanning and path length. SensorBug reduces the frequency at which data about the visible environment is gathered and the amount of scanning for each time data is gathered. It is shown that despite the reductions, correct termination is still guaranteed for any environment. Curv1 [19], a robot navigation algorithm, was developed to guide a robot to the target in an unknown environment with a single non-self intersecting guide track. Via an intermediate algorithm Curv2, Curv1 is expanded into a new algorithm, Curv3. Curv3 is capable of pairing multiple start and targets and coping with self-intersecting track.

A text that makes the mathematical underpinnings of robot motion accessible and relates low-level details of implementation to high-level algorithmic concepts. Robot motion planning has become a major focus of robotics. Research findings can be applied not only to robotics but to planning routes on circuit boards, directing digital actors in computer graphics, robot-assisted surgery and medicine, and in novel areas such as drug design and protein folding. This text reflects the great advances that have taken place in the last ten years, including sensor-based planning, probabalistic planning, localization and mapping, and motion planning for dynamic and nonholonomic systems. Its presentation makes the mathematical underpinnings of robot motion accessible to students of computer science and engineering, rleating low-level implementation details to high-level algorithmic concepts.