Junior Research Consultant of the Inertial Autonomous Navigation Systems Lab Aleksey Stepanov talks about his work.

«The methods used for inertial positioning now are quite imprecise, - says Mr. Stepanov. – We want to avoid that by using different sensors and summarizing their data».

The group is now studying different types of positioning errors and trying to find ways to compensate them.

Despite having to deal with inaccuracies, inertial navigation has an indisputable advantage – it can be used in tunnels, shafts and other locations where satellite uplink is unavailable. One such use is for the safety of coal miners or firefighters. Of course, military applications are also of importance.

Alexey Stepanov says that the group still has much work to do – determining what mathematical methods should be used, what to do with digital treatment of data, etc. The work on the typology of errors is pretty much completed by this point.

Another important issue – and isn't it always – is reducing costs. Sometimes cheap sensors are used in such devices, and the priority is to improve digital processing.

The research has already attracted some attention from Cisco and has been presented in peer-reviewed journals and at conferences.