Objective  In systematic operations, ship formation navigation faces such challenges as equipment damage, electromagnetic interference and complex operational environments. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a distributed network-based integrated navigation system and method for surface warship formations that can improve the robustness and flexibility of ship navigation in complex environments.

Methods  The formation cooperative navigation system is divided into the equipment level, subsystem level and system level. At the equipment level, the original navigation data of GNSS/INS is output. At the subsystem level, the node navigation data is output. At the system level, the formation cooperative navigation data is generated by fusion. In order to realize the data fusion of formation cooperative navigation at the system level, a distributed formation cooperative navigation network is constructed using the Floyd algorithm based on the principle of shortest baseline transmission path, and the node cooperative navigation data is generated through dynamic baseline transfer on the basis of the node navigation data. The formation cooperative navigation data is then output by fusing the cooperative navigation data of multiple nodes through the weighted least square method.

Results  The simulation results show that the proposed method successfully constructs a distributed cooperative navigation network which can ensure the uninterrupted navigation of damaged nodes through navigation support and improve the navigation accuracy of disturbed nodes through precision support.

Conclusion  The distributed cooperative navigation method has such advantages as anti-damage, anti-jamming and improved accuracy, enabling it to effectively deal with complex combat environments.