GPS+INS navigation, nearly there...

[IO540]

A mere snip at £25k, here (http://www.kvh.com/Military-and-Government/Gyros-and-Inertial-Systems-and-Compasses/Gyros-and-IMUs-and-INS/INS/CNS-5000.aspx).

Connect a GPS antenna one end, and you get NMEA lat/long/etc data coming out at the other end.

Continuous inertial navigation, as accurate as the big jets.

[BackPacker]

Actually from the pics it suggests both connectors are at the same end...;)

But yes, looks like a great product. I'm just curious about the price. My iPad has the same sensors (GPS, gyros and accellerometers) and is less than 4% of the price. Of course it's a different product aimed at a different market, with possibly some inferior components, but still... A factor of 25???

[FlyingStone]

Looks much more like IRS to me...

I really fail to see the operational use of this device, especially when flying in civilised world, such as Europe/North America, where you have VOR/DME and NDB coverage almost throughout the entire flight, unless you fly at 1000ft AGL in less-than-flat terrain.

As for the accuracy, I think the radio navigation is much more accurate than intertial navigation, especially in the long-term. Even the jets don't use the INS/IRS anymore, unless they really have to (e.g. GPS failure and no radio navigation coverage).

[IO540]

This is GPS-assisted IRS - what big jets have.

Of course GPS is very accurate but if you lose reception then you lose the lot.

This thing is also sold into markets where you want short-range inertial guidance, which conventional GPS is not so good at (centimetre accuracy positioning).

The inertial sensors in an Iphone are the standard el-cheapo ones whose drift is about 3 orders of magnitude not good enough for navigation. They are used to stabilise cameras against shake, etc. The specs of these vary according to how much you pay but basically if you generated a heading reference from solid state accelerometers you would get a heading drift very roughly of the order of 1 degree every few seconds, which is even worse than the DI in the planes I did my PPL in ;)

This box uses fibre optic gyros.

A few years ago it was £100k or so. The price came down gradually, not least because the U.S. JDAM smart bomb guidance package has one of these things on the front of it, which nowadays tends to guarantee a respectable sales volume ;) ;)