Estimating the navigation informativity of the Earth’s anomalous gravity field

Abstract

Application of modern global geopotential models to estimate the navigation informativity of the Earth’s anomalous gravity field (EAGF) is considered from the viewpoint of its use in autonomous (correlation- extreme) navigation. Various algorithms for calculating the characteristics of route and area navigation informativity, for which the authors use the variance and correlation radius of a measured EAGF parameter, are presented. The results of the experimental studies on estimation of the EAGF navigation informativity are discussed by analyzing vertical deflections and second derivatives of the perturbing potential in the Sea of Okhotsk with the use of the model EGM-2008 to degree 2190. It is shown that second derivatives of the geopotential demonstrate higher informativity as applied to navigation purposes.