On analytical error analysis of POS for ground alignment and constant-velocity flight

Position and orientation system (POS) is widely applied to the various mapping sensors for airborne direct georeferencing. As the accuracy requirements vary in different mapping applications, the POS error analysis is important for the system design. In this paper, an analytical approach to the POS error analysis for ground alignment and constant-velocity flight is proposed. First, the simplified system model is obtained for the error analysis. Then, by applying the two-stage Kalman filter, the analytical relations between the attitude errors and estimation errors of the biases of the inertial sensors are derived. Finally, the experiment is carried out to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method is not only effective and straightforward but also provides us some new insights into the POS error characteristics.