Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T18:48:31.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Velocity Field: A New Concept in Navigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2009

T. M. B. Wright
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The practical navigator relies on his ability to perform two fundamentally distinct operations: fixing his position and determining the course to steer. Guidance, in the sense that he receives (or generates within his craft) signals which continually define a vector coincident with his desired track, is not normally available to him.

Certain radio aids, notably the hyperbolic navigation systems, have however, frequently been used in the guidance role where the direction in which the signals can be particularly easily interpreted happens to coincide with the course to be steered. Thus, flying down a Decca lane is an acceptable operational technique which corresponds to making the aircraft follow the locus of constant range-difference to two points at known locations. It is not in principle necessary for the craft to perform the conversion from hyperbolic to Earth coordinates in order to do this.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 218 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1Britting, K. R. (1971) Inertial Navigation Systems Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Google Scholar
2Wright, T. M. B. (1971). Simplified methods of position fixing using earth satellites. This Journal, 24, 496.Google Scholar
3Hoag, D. G. (1970). Ballistic missile guidance, Proc. 10th Annual Pugwash Sumposium, MIT Press. June, 1970.Google Scholar
4Wright, T. M. B., U.S. Patent No. 3430234; U.K. Patent No. 1084110, May, 1965.Google Scholar
5Wright, T. M. B. (1974). The U.S. Navy MARISAT system as a basis for global navigation. (Paper delivered at the one-day meeting on Maritime Satellites held by the British Interplanetary Society in London, 18th April 1974.)Google Scholar