Customer Reviews

Global Positioning Systems, Inertial Navigation, and Integration

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Here are some quotes from a review of this book in GPS World, July 2001, pp 46-47, by Dr. John Angus, a consultant and researcher in the area of GPS-aided navigation systems, AND professor at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA. Dr. Angus' credentials qualify him to review this book.

"Noteworthy is the comprehensiveness of the material on GPS, Kalman filtering and Kalman filter engineering, and the appendix on coordinate transforms...An instructor could easily develop a one-semester course on basic GPS or a full year course on GPS and inertial navigation, each of them "glued" together by the Kalman filter and enlivened by computer experiments with the MATLAB code provided."

"The writing...tends to be concise and the mathematics is kept to the minimum necessary to expose the theory and methods of filtering, GPS, and INS."

"...effectively addresses most of the basic engineering and performance issues relating to GPS/INS."

"...recommended for personal and professional libraries."

This is an application-oriented book, which as such, does not include detailed mathematical derivations. It does provide Kalman filter algorithms (on floppy and in text), but if one needs the theory of Kalman filtering behind these, one needs to use a Kalman filtering text, such as Kalman Filtering Theory & Practice Using MATLAB (Second Edition), Wiley 2001, by Grewal and Andrews. The latter book gives all of the methods in square root filtering algorithms and derivations and more. If the "Asian Reviewer" is most interested in Kalman filtering, he/she would be better advised to buy a book on Kalman filtering.

Here are some quotes from a review of this book in GPS World, July 2001, pp 46-47, by Dr. John Angus, a consultant and researcher in the area of GPS-aided navigation systems, AND professor at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA. Dr. Angus' credentials qualify him to review this book.

"Noteworthy is the comprehensiveness of the material on GPS, Kalman filtering and Kalman filter engineering, and the appendix on coordinate transforms...An instructor could easily develop a one-semester course on basic GPS or a full year course on GPS and inertial navigation, each of them "glued" together by the Kalman filter and enlivened by computer experiments with the MATLAB code provided."

"The writing...tends to be concise and the mathematics is kept to the minimum necessary to expose the theory and methods of filtering, GPS, and INS."

"...effectively addresses most of the basic engineering and performance issues relating to GPS/INS."

"...recommended for personal and professional libraries."

This is an application-oriented book, which as such, does not include detailed mathematical derivations. It does provide Kalman filter algorithms (on floppy and in text), but if one needs the theory of Kalman filtering behind these, one needs to use a Kalman filtering text, such as Kalman Filtering Theory & Practice Using MATLAB (Second Edition), Wiley 2001, by Grewal and Andrews. The latter book gives all of the methods in square root filtering algorithms and derivations and more. If the "Asian Reviewer" is most interested in Kalman filtering, he/she would be better advised to buy a book on Kalman filtering.

This book puts all together concepts and theories normally found only in separated books. GPS, inertial navigation and how to integrate both things normally require reading a lot of different articles and journals. These subjects are individually complex and demanding but its modern GPS concepts approach were deep enough to allow the proper correlation between the inertial theory and GPS through the Kalman Filtering. The book demands some previous and basic concepts knowledge regarding filtering. And if you are a self-made student you will miss the answers for the proposed problems which worth trying to solve. But it should not prevent you to buy this book. It is clear that the authors are not only one of main expertise on their area but know how to transmit their great experience.

Of course the experience of the authors is great but none of it you can use either in your study or research. It is impossible to learn about Kalman filtering from this book as well as to improve your knowledge in this area. Book is intended for professionals in this area but professionals will not need it. Many intersting facts but no detailed information. For example one can know that the square root filtering method came from James Potter but there is nothing more about this method from this book. Otherwise you have to study sources of the software (included). Book is written as advertizing of author's skills and nothing else. Too much about nothing ...

One of the students in my lecture came up to me and said he had studied this book all summer to learn about GPS. He found it to be very helpful to him and he said it was the best source of information on GPS he had come across.