Emulation of future threat physical and dynamics characteristics using full size or scale model target drones plays an indispensable role in functionality validation and performance evaluation of advanced weapon systems. However, current target instrumentation has to use a mixture of different devices for safe separation, range safety, vector scoring, drone recovery among others. An integrated GPS/IMU system with proper configuration and processing has the potential to provide all necessary information with the required accuracy. As a follow-up to our previous paper of conceptual design and simulation, this paper describes one scheme of hardware and software implementation of the Multifunctional Instrumentation for Targets or MIT kit concept and its preliminary ground test results. Of particular technical interest is the problem of solving timing error and reconstructing local time base associated with a particular GPS OEM receiver employed in our study when in the GPS time alignment mode for kinematic post-processing. Techniques developed to detect and recover missing counts of slew to GPS second boundary are discussed. In addition, the design of an integration Kalman filter of GPS and IMU is presented together with the test results analysis.
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