Guidance & Navigation

Many stabilized platforms require a host INS/AHRS/IMU for pointing or sometimes feedforward stabilization. High performance off-the-shelf navigation systems add significant part cost to a design while not taking advantage of the unique suite of sensors already available on the vehicle or system. A project required IJK Controls to develop a special-purpose inertial navigation system that took advantage of measurements that are already available on the vehicle.

An established communications company sought ways to improve performance of a laser-based gimbal-mounted communications on-the-move product line. The DARPA funded program was intended to push the performance of existing systems by an order of magnitude. In particular, the product’s tracking ability and the ability to recover quickly from periods of outages were major program focuses.

IJK Controls built a detailed simulation that modeled everything from stabilized gimbal and target dynamics, video tracker noise to motor saturation and possible atmospheric effects.

Getting the dynamics correct is an essential step to many new mechanism designs and control design efforts. IJK Controls has decades of experiences with solving complex dynamics problems.

IJK Controls uses symbolic math tools to formulate the kinematics and solve equations. Comprehensive dynamics including inertia tensors and reflected torques, for example, require painstaking attention to detail. Custom designed modules auto-code the resulting equations into real-time C or C++, leaving well-documented formulations and reducing human coding mistakes.

A biophysics department at a major university was investigating the mechanisms of flapping wing flight and tapped IJK Controls' experience in flight control and guidance systems.