Final Presentation NAVISP EL1-088 "PROOF-OF-CONCEPT OF ADVANCED NAVIGATION ALGORITHMS BASED ON FACTOR GRAPH OPTIMIZATION"

Through the NAVISP EL1088 JLR successfully delivered the Factor Graph Optimisation Navigation Unit (FGO-Nav) — a next generation proof-of-concept platform advancing the state of the art in GNSS and multi-sensor navigation. The system demonstrates how Factor Graph Optimisation (FGO) can outperform traditional Kalman filter-based approaches, particularly in degraded GNSS environments such as urban canyons, tunnels, and areas of intermittent satellite visibility. The project introduces a fully modular architecture encompassing synchronised multi-sensor data logging, a configurable FGO engine supporting GNSS-only, GNSS/INS, Real Time Kinematic (RTK), and Precise Point Positioning (PPP) modalities, and a comprehensive Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and visualisation framework enabling rigorous evaluation of algorithmic performance.

Across more than 24 hours of real world multi environment testing, supplemented by synthetic data and the UrbanNav public dataset, the FGO Nav platform demonstrated strong accuracy, robustness, and real time representativeness, meeting all ESA Statement of Work requirements. Tightly Coupled FGO consistently delivered improved estimation accuracy compared to Loosely Coupled FGO, Extended Kalman Filtering, and commercial GNSS receivers, especially in GNSS challenged scenarios. The activity has validated the feasibility of FGO based navigation for future automotive and terrestrial applications, providing ESA and the wider navigation community with a validated, extensible, and research ready foundation for the next generation of high integrity positioning solutions.

This activity was fully funded under NAVISP Element 1, which aims to increase European innovation in Positioning, Navigation and Timing. Please check the agenda and register for the event to learn more about this project.