Integrated Navigation Test 1 Practice

Dead-reckoning in integrated navigation means starting from a known position and propagating that position forward by integrating velocity over time using onboard motion data. The velocity input comes from sensors such as an inertial measurement unit or wheel sensors. Because these sensors have biases and noise, small errors accumulate as you integrate, leading to drift. No external position updates are used in this process, so the estimate can gradually diverge from the true position if corrections aren’t applied.

This is different from relying on GNSS readings, which provide external position fixes rather than a forward-propagation of position. It also isn’t about deriving velocity from accelerometers alone, which wouldn’t by itself complete a position update, and it isn’t about updating position from heading alone, since knowing direction without distance traveled doesn’t yield a new position.