Cascaded Tightly-Coupled Observer Design for Single-Range-Aided Inertial Navigation

Abstract: This work introduces a single-range-aided navigation observer that reconstructs the full state of a rigid body using only an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), a body-frame vector measurement (e.g., magnetometer), and a distance measurement from a fixed anchor point. The design first formulates an extended linear time-varying (LTV) system to estimate body-frame position, body-frame velocity, and the gravity direction. The recovered gravity direction, combined with the body-frame vector measurement, is then used to reconstruct the full orientation on $\mathrm{SO}(3)$, resulting in a cascaded observer architecture. Almost Global Asymptotic Stability (AGAS) of the cascaded design is established under a uniform observability condition, ensuring robustness to sensor noise and trajectory variations. Simulation studies on three-dimensional trajectories demonstrate accurate estimation of position, velocity, and orientation, highlighting single-range aiding as a lightweight and effective modality for autonomous navigation.