A Review on Gravity Matching Navigation and Positioning Technology
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: As a fully passive and covert navigation technique, gravity matching navigation (GMN) effectively suppresses the accumulated drift of inertial navigation systems (INS) in GNSS-denied regions, and thus becomes indispensable for long-endurance, high-precision missions of submersibles, unmanned aerial vehicles and deep-space detectors. It presents a comprehensive survey of GMN positioning technology. The fundamental principle and operational flow of GMN are first introduced, where real-time gravity observations are matched against pre-established gravity reference maps to calibrate INS positioning errors. It further reviews high-precision gravimeters and gravity gradiometers, compares their performance limitations, and discusses the domestic and international gaps in core sensor hardware and dynamic environmental adaptability. The construction procedure of gravity reference maps, quantitative evaluation indices for gravity field navigation suitability, and classical matching algorithms including TERCOM, ICCP and SITAN are summarized, along with cascaded filtering frameworks and data-driven optimization methods. Critical engineering constraints are concluded, including limited spatial resolution of gravity reference maps, insufficient real-time computing capacity, and registration bias between sensors and map datasets. Four promising research directions are proposed: miniaturized quantum gravity sensors, dynamically updatable high-density gravity databases, lightweight self-adaptive matching algorithms, and tight-coupled fusion of multi-source navigation information. This survey provides a systematic technical reference for subsequent theoretical research and engineering implementation of GMN under complex signal-shielded environments.
Language: English
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7220713166