Guidance & Navigation

Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) is an increasingly critical element of aerospace and autonomous systems from autonomous cars to commercial jets to deep space probes. Analyze how modern navigation systems work including dead reckoning (speed, direction), radio navigation systems (ground based and satellite) and inertial navigation. Examine the safety and secure use of these systems for guiding commercial aviation and autonomous navigation applications. Explore emerging technologies that may affect the capability and design of future aerospace systems including pulsar navigation for deep space missions and cellular and other signals to aid urban navigation of UAVs, self-driving cars and rail. Prerequisites: E15 and familiarity with Matlab and Linear Algebra.