Magnetic Anomaly Based Navigation

Magnetic Anomaly Based Navigation

Magnetic Anomaly based navigation is similar to terrain-based navigation but uses the Earth’s magnetic to navigate and localize an agent. This problem has been of great interest to the Air Force Research Lab as it is a passive sensing technique and does not rely on weather and visual features. The AVL has supported AFRL in developing simplified proof-of-concept demonstrations using a ground robot and a magnetic anomaly map of our flight space (available to public on request) to support researchers and engineers. From a research stand-point, AVL is interested in exploring information based guidance for MagNav and the applying machine learning for the problem of own-ship calibration.

The above video shows the turtlebot localizing and navigating using a scalar magnetometer and a prior magnetic anomaly map