A geometry-based method for the rapid deployment of a UAV pseudolite navigation system in a target area

To provide users with secure and reliable navigation, positioning and timing (PNT) services, it is necessary to establish resilient PNT because global navigation satellite system (GNSS) platforms are limited by weak received power and are susceptible to interference. As a part of resilient PNT, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pseudolite navigation system can be easily used as an independent backup navigation system and an augmentation system for GNSS. When used as a backup system, good geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) performance should be provided to users. Therefore, it is critical to optimize the specific position of pseudolite systems. However, most existing layout methods are based on experience or optimization algorithms without theoretical derivation for the user layer and have defects of weak robustness or too long of a computing time. Therefore, we introduce a robust method that can quickly determine the specific location of each pseudolite system to provide better GDOP performance. To verify the performance of the method, we compared the proposed method with an empirical method and optimization methods based on the non-dominant sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) and the genetic algorithm (GA) through simulation. The results showed that the proposed method not only has a shorter computing time but can also provide more accurate positioning services for users with a smaller GDOP. Furthermore, even under harsh conditions such as large region radius, it can still obtain usable results, while the other methods cannot. Moreover, we also verified the effectiveness of the proposed method using an experimental UAV with real-time positioning. The results when the UAV hovered were almost the same as the simulation results. Although the results when the UAV circled were slightly worse than when it hovered, they were still acceptable for users.