Dead reckoning drift

Integrate speed and heading along a route, add a heading bias or a speed error, and see how the position error grows with distance until a fix resets it.

LIVE DEMO · DEAD RECKONING

LOW ERROR

Map-style diagram of a route through a city, under a river in a tunnel and out again, with satellite fixes before and after, growing uncertainty ellipses while inside the tunnel, and a small chart of position error rising then resetting when the fix returns.
  • true path
  • dead-reckoned path
  • fix

Illustrative

CONTROLS

1°
+1.0 %
1×
1.5 km
POSITION ERROR
30.3 m
DISTANCE TRAVELLED
1.5 km
SINCE LAST FIX
1.5 km

Simulated, with illustrative figures. Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

Assumptions behind the figures
  • The route is a made-up 6.8 km path at constant speed
  • The heading bias and speed error are constant and unknown to the integrator
  • A fix resets the position to the true position

MORE

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Watch a position get dragged away, and which checks catch it.