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 | | Modern Inertial Technology: Navigation, Guidance, and Control (Mechanical Engineering Series) by Anthony Lawrence ISBN-10: 9780387985077 ISBN-10: 0-387-98507-7 ISBN-13: 9780387985077 ISBN-13: 978-0-387-98507-7 Hardcover 1998-12 Springer Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description While some automatic navigation systems can use external measurements to determine their position (as the driver of a car uses road signs, or more recent automated systems use satellite data), others (such as those used in submarines) cannot. They must rely instead on internal measurements of the acceleration to determine their speed and position. Such inertial guidance systems have been in use since Word War II, and modern navigation would be impossible without them. This book describes the inertial technology used for guidance, control, and navigation, discussing in detail the principles, operation, and design of sensors, gyroscopes, and accelerometers, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of particular systems. An engineer with long practical experience in the field, the author elucidates the most recent developments in inertial guidance. Among these are fiber-optic gyroscopes, solid-state accelerometers, and the Global Positioning System. The book should be of interest to researchers and practicing engineers involved in systems engineering, aeronautics, space research, and navigation on land and on sea. This second edition has been brought up to date throughout, and includes new material on micromachined gyroscopes. | ||
Reviews | ||
Good overview, but not detailed This is a good overview to hand a beginning avionics or flight controls engineer who needs to get familiar with the very basic principles of inertial nav. Good coverage of various types of instruments, but many of the designs covered are outdated and of little use in modern design work. Given the paucity of works in this field, I welcomed it as an introductory text, but you could not perform any serious trade studies for a real design with only the knowledge in this book. It doesn't cover GPS in any depth, or the important topic of GPS/INS blending. Other topics missing are a good intro to optical gyros (Sagnac effect) and the overall integration of nav systems (steering modes, landing systems, cooperative nav, effects on weapons delivery, and so on). Still, for the money, I would recommend it to a neophyte who has some extra cash...you have to start somewhere! | ||
Modern Inertial Technology This book has the potential of being extremely useful; certainly it is an ambitions book. In the discussions of the mechanical gyros the disertation flows fairly well. However, once into the optical gyros, the result is just about worthless. The Sagnac Effect is the basis for all optical gyros such as the ring laser and the fibre optic gyro. The discussion of this effect is just about useless. It is virtually impossible to see how one equation follows from the preceding equation. The fringe shift from two interfering beams which rotate in opposite direction is the basis of all optical gyros, but the discussion in Lawrence's book is little more than hand waving. In other words, if the reader has a background in optical physics, then the discussion makes some sense. However, the book must be judged upon its own merits and here I think it fails miserably. So I would recommend the book for the discussion of mechanical gyros but as an introduction to optical gyros I would recommend that the reader look elsewhere. | ||
A modern source in a modest body of literature The technology in the field is quite advanced, and the research is particulary active and in costant evolution. Producing a comprehensive reference is quite difficult but the author delivers clearly the advantages and disadvantages of each system analyzed in the book. As a guide, the work has neatly reached its goal, since it delivers a clear picture of the current state of art and the trend of each system development. In fact the author is covering every subject quite extensively without the dispersion of innumerable specific technical papers, which are, of course, much more detailed but far from comprehending the scope of the whole field. The only point is the mathematical level,that is maybe too simple for engineers and scientists, and a little bit complicated for the average pilot, one of the most interested user in the field. | ||