In-Car Positioning and Navigation Technologies—A Survey

In-car positioning and navigation has been a killer application for Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, and a variety of electronics for consumers and professionals have been launched on a large scale. Positioning technologies based on stand-alone GPS receivers are vulnerable and, thus, have to be supported by additional information sources to obtain the desired accuracy, integrity, availability, and continuity of service. A survey of the information sources and information fusion technologies used in current in-car navigation systems is presented. The pros and cons of the four commonly used information sources, namely, 1) receivers for radio-based positioning using satellites, 2) vehicle motion sensors, 3) vehicle models, and 4) digital map information, are described. Common filters to combine the information from the various sources are discussed. The expansion of the number of satellites and the number of satellite systems, with their usage of available radio spectrum, is an enabler for further development, in combination with the rapid development of microelectromechanical inertial sensors and refined digital maps.