From ceginfo@u.washington.edu Thu Dec 5 10:52:05 2002 Received: from mailscan2.cac.washington.edu (mailscan2.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.16]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.11) with SMTP id gB5Iq5rw027958 for ; Thu, 5 Dec 2002 10:52:05 -0800 Received: FROM mxu4.u.washington.edu BY mailscan2.cac.washington.edu ; Thu Dec 05 10:52:04 2002 -0800 Received: from mxout4.cac.washington.edu (mxout4.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.19]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.11) with ESMTP id gB5Iq4Mc003403 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO) for ; Thu, 5 Dec 2002 10:52:04 -0800 Received: from mailscan-out3.cac.washington.edu (mailscan-out3.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.170]) by mxout4.cac.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.11) with SMTP id gB5Iq45C018968 for ; Thu, 5 Dec 2002 10:52:04 -0800 Received: FROM homer38.u.washington.edu BY mailscan-out3.cac.washington.edu ; Thu Dec 05 10:52:03 2002 -0800 Received: from localhost (ceginfo@localhost) by homer38.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.11) with ESMTP id gB5Iq2tP094368; Thu, 5 Dec 2002 10:52:02 -0800 Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 10:52:02 -0800 (PST) From: Civil and Environmental Engineering To: cegrads@u.washington.edu, , , Subject: MSCE Defense for Jianyang Zheng (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The final examination for the MSCE degree for Jianyang Zheng will be held on Thursday, December 12, 2002 at 10:00 a.m. in More 218 (Faculty Library). PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF THE GPS/INS INTEGRATED SYSTEM IN FOREST ENVIRONMENT AND URBAN AREA by Jianyang Zheng Committee Members: Nancy Nihan (Chairman) Joe P. Mahoney Yinhai Wang Kalmal Ahmed ABSTRACT: The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a worldwide radio-navigation system and is widely used for tracking tasks in forestry, transportation, and other fields. To accurately monitor logging vehicles in real-time is important for forestry management, because the buffer zones from streams and other natural resources should be accurately maintained. In urban area, where locates high density of population and transportation activity, many kinds of vehicles, such as buses, taxis, police cars, and vehicles with HAZMAT, should be accurately tracked in real-time for fleet manegement or other purposes. Although GPS is excellent in its availability, scope, and precision under ideal circumstance such as in the air or on the sea, it is not so satisfying when the receiver is under or near canopies such as trees, high-rise buildings, or tunnels. The canopies can block the satellite signals and keep the receiver from updating position data, or reflect the satellite signals and increase the position error. This problem can be solved by integrating GPS with other tracking system such as the Inertial Navigation System (INS). INS relies on no external references after it is initialized and aligned, but its position error increases without limit as time goes on. The GPS/INS Intergrated System can use the GPS data when the GPS satellite signals are good, and relies on INS during short periods of GPS signal outages. This paper evaluates the performance of the latest product of the GPS/INS Integrated System. Based on the the analysis of the field test data, conclusions can be drawn that the GPS/INS Integrated System is superior to GPS alone and is sufficient for the requirements of most of the tracking tasks both in forest and urban area. Marcia Buck, Graduate Advising Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Box 352700 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195-2700 (206) 543-2574, Fax: (206) 685-9185 .