Dilution of Precision in the Problem of Estimating the Aircraft Velocity by Means of Three-Beam Lidar Measurements

The paper presents our study on the dilution of precision in the problem of estimating the vehicle’s velocity using a three-beam Doppler lidar. Such a system has been proposed as an addition or replacement to the differential GNSS velocity solution in an airborne gravimetry system. We analytically derive optimal directions of lidar beams and use numerical simulation to obtain their attitude which minimizes the error covariance of estimated vertical velocity.