In the context of inertial navigation systems (INS), Standard Deviation is a measure of how spread out or varied the errors in your system are.
Here's how it works in INS:
- Calculate the errors: For each measurement, find the difference between the estimated value (from the INS) and the true value (from a reference like GPS).
- Find the average error: Calculate the average of all the errors.
- Measure the spread: Standard deviation looks at how much the errors differ from the average error. If most errors are close to the average, the standard deviation will be small. If the errors vary a lot, the standard deviation will be large.
Why it matters in INS:
In inertial navigation, Standard Deviation helps you understand how consistent your system is. A low standard deviation means your system’s errors are generally small and consistent, while a high standard deviation means the errors are more spread out and unpredictable. This is important because a low standard deviation indicates more reliable navigation.
