VN-200 Rugged GNSS-aided inertial navigation sensor

The VN-200 Rugged is a GNSS-aided inertial navigation system (GNSS/INS) made by VectorNav. It combines 3-axis gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers, a barometer and a high-sensitivity GNSS receiver with an Extended Kalman Filter, and it outputs position, velocity and attitude in a single enclosed sensor. It is the ready-to-install form of the VN-200 SMD, housed in a clamshell enclosure of precision anodized aluminum that protects the inertial sensors, the receiver and the electronics.

The VN-200 is a true INS: it has no restriction on mounting orientation and no configuration modes, with automatic filter initialization and dynamic alignment. It tracks gyro and accelerometer bias in real time, and each unit is calibrated for bias, scale factor, misalignment and temperature over the full operating range, and tested in VectorNav's AS9100 certified facility. This lets a flight controller or payload use the output directly as the attitude and position source of an unmanned aircraft.

The main performance figures are a dynamic heading accuracy of 0.2 degrees (1 sigma) and a pitch and roll accuracy of 0.03 degrees (1 sigma), both with enough motion for dynamic alignment, and a horizontal and vertical position accuracy of 1.0 m and 1.5 m RMS. Velocity accuracy is below 0.05 m/s. The gyros have a range of 2000 degrees per second and an in-run bias stability of 5 degrees per hour typical (below 10), the accelerometers a range of 16 g and a bias stability below 0.04 mg. Position, velocity and attitude are output at up to 400 Hz and IMU data at up to 800 Hz. After a loss of GNSS, free inertial position drift is 3.0 cm/s2, which sets how long the navigation solution can bridge a signal outage.

The GNSS receiver has 72 channels and tracks GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS and SBAS, with GPS, Galileo and SBAS used in the default configuration. Cold start time to first fix is 29 s, hot start 1 s, and operation is allowed up to 50,000 m and 500 m/s. A GNSS PPS output and sync-in and sync-out signals support time synchronization with cameras, lidar and other sensors.

The Rugged unit measures 36 x 33 x 9.5 mm and weighs 16 g. The supply is 3.3 to 17 V, with 80 mA at 5 V, or 500 mW, excluding an active antenna. Interfaces are RS-232 and serial TTL, with ASCII, NMEA-0183 and VectorNav binary output messages, and the VectorNav Control Center software is used for setup, configuration and logging. The operating temperature is -40 to +85 degrees Celsius and the MTBF exceeds 150,000 hours. The unit is ITAR-free and made in the USA. The maker positions it for aerial photogrammetry, lidar mapping, bathymetric survey, EO/IR surveillance, satellite antenna stabilization and autonomous vehicles.