Ranging-aided Aerobridge Navigation Using Dual Quaternion Based Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter

The autopilot of aerobridge has attracted considerable attention recently since human error and high labor costs. To estimate the pose of an aerobridge, this paper proposes a navigation algorithm with the aid of pairwise distances and inertial measurements. We first locate the joints of the aerobridge with the distance measurement. Then the pose of the aerobridge is calculated using its kinematic in closed-form and the associated covariance is derived. A dual quaternion based multiplicative extended Kalman filter is designed to fuse inertial measurements with the estimated pose, which produces a smooth pose. To verify the precision of this algorithm, a simulation is constructed based on Robotics Toolbox and the experiment results are positive.