vii berichte von fachinstituten an universitäten und technischen

364 Fachinstitute an Universitäten und Hochschulen
Teaching activities at the Institute of Geodesy and Navigation
The study concept in the field of navigation follows more
or less two interdependent lines: Signal processing and
navigation more strictly speaking. Signal processing starts
in the 6. trimester and navigation one trimester later. Signal
processing I+II and navigation I+II is mandatory for every
student, whereas signal processing III and navigation III
cover more advanced topics and belong to the area of
specialization. In total the students have the choice among
four topics of specialization in the study course of geoinformation
and geodesy.
Dual line education concept
Signal processing is considered as a series of lectures in
order to provide fundamental knowledge for navigation.
These lectures have the goal to lead the students to a
sufficient understanding of signal processing in GPS
receivers and INS systems and of the Kalman filter. In detail
the topics of the signal processing lectures may be
summarized as follows:
– Introduction and fundamentals
– Analog and digital signals
– Sampling and quantization
– Dynamic systems and stochastic processes
– Basics of control theory
– Kalman filtering
– Signal processing for GNSS receivers
– Signal processing for INS algorithms
The lectures in navigation are based step-by-step on the
lectures in signal processing. The effort undertaken in the
navigation lectures is to give the students an introduction
to the state-of-the-art in modern navigation, i.e. with the
emphasis on satellite and inertial navigation and sensor
integration. These fields are complemented by lecture
material about classical navigation, e.g. about OMEGA,
LORAN-C, VOR/DME. In detail the following contents are
presented in the navigation lectures:
– Introduction and history of navigation
– Fundamentals, e.g. electromagnetic waves
– Dead-reckoning systems (car, aircraft, ship)
– Inertial navigation (gyros, accelerometers)
– Satellite navigation (Transit, GPS, GLONASS,
GALILEO, WAAS, EGNOS, LAAS)
– GPS modernization and military GPS
– Ground based methods (LORAN, OMEGA, VOR/DME,
TACAN, ILS, MLS )
– Integrated systems
– Special topics (high-sensitivity GPS, GPS/INS coupling,
multipath, mobile communications)
– Applications (land, maritime, air, space)
All the lectures are supplemented by computational and
instrumental exercises and field demonstrations. For the
latter we make use of the earlier described facilities of the
institute. The philosophy of the educational approach is on
the one hand that the students should learn an appropriate
level of theory of navigation. This means that we require
that e.g. every student should have performed an absolute
and differential GPS positioning solution in MATLAB or
C programming language based on real data. Another
important topic of this kind is the implementation and
simulation of the dynamic error state equations of an INS
on the PC, including simplified forms of the Kalman filter
(single axis INS with position, velocity and/or attitude
up-date). On the other hand we think that it is necessary that
students also get a basic practical impression of how to
operate navigation instruments like a GPS receiver (low-end
to high-end), an inertial navigation system or a LORAN-C
receiver.
Research
With respect to European standards the Institute of Geodesy
and Navigation is very committed to research in navigation.
This is also confirmed by the fact that about 75% of the staff
(research associates) are paid by externally funded research
projects, which means that the institute has to acquire
research contracts of the order of 1.0 Million € per year. A
failure in this acquisition process would immediately result
in a reduction of staff members.
Research History
The institute has carried out research for almost 20 years
now and has been able to provide significant contributions
to science and technology in the fields of geodesy and
navigation. For instance, the concept of Operational Geodesy
(”Integrated Geodesy”) was developed and optimized
in the early days after the foundation of the institute resulting
in the integrated software package OPERA. High
precision inertial navigation and GPS/INS integration as
well as pseudolite research have been and still are important
research foci. Several software packages were written for
major GPS manufacturers which are now in world-wide use.
Already in the late 80’s orbit determination of GPS satellites
was investigated and GPS orbit parameter estimation was
introduced into high precision GPS baseline vector
estimation software, like e.g. TOPAS (now well-known as
the enhanced product GeoGenius followed up by Trimble
Total Control).
Current Research Topics
The Institute has the four major working groups, namely
"GALILEO and GNSS-2", "Sensor Fusion and Integration",
"GNSS Software Receiver" and "Other Projects". These
groups have been set up according to the current research