Local tangent plane coordinates
Local tangent plane coordinates (LTP), sometimes named local
vertical, local horizontal coordinates (LVLH), are a geographical
coordinate system based on the local vertical direction and the Earth's
axis of rotation. It consists of three coordinates: one represents the
position along the northern axis, one along the local eastern axis, and
one represents the vertical position. Two right-handed variants exist:
east, north, up (ENU) coordinates and north, east, down (NED)
coordinates. They serve for representing state vectors that are
commonly used in aviation and marine cybernetics.
Contents The east north up (ENU) local
tangent plane is similar to NED,
Axes
except for swapping 'down' for 'up'
Local east, north, up (ENU) coordinates and x for y.
Local north, east, down (NED) coordinates
See also
References
Axes
These frames are location dependent. For movements around the globe, like air or sea navigation, the frames
are defined as tangent to the lines of geographical coordinates:
East-West tangent to parallels,
North-South tangent to meridians, and
Up-Down in the direction normal to the oblate spheroid used as Earth's ellipsoid, which does
not generally pass through the center of the Earth.
Local east, north, up (ENU) coordinates
In many targeting and tracking applications the local East, North, Up (ENU) Cartesian coordinate system is far
more intuitive and practical than ECEF or Geodetic coordinates. The local ENU coordinates are formed from
a plane tangent to the Earth's surface fixed to a specific location and hence it is sometimes known as a "Local
Tangent" or "local geodetic" plane. By convention the east axis is labeled , the north and the up .
Local north, east, down (NED) coordinates
In an airplane, most objects of interest are below the aircraft, so it is sensible to define down as a positive
number. The North, East, Down (NED) coordinates allow this as an alternative to the ENU. By convention,
the north axis is labeled , the east and the down . To avoid confusion between and , etc. in this
article we will restrict the local coordinate frame to ENU.
The origin of this coordinate system is usually chosen to be a point on the surface of the geoid below the
aircraft's center of gravity. However, care must be taken since, if the aircraft is accelerating (turning or
accelerating linearly), then the NED coordinates are no longer inertial coordinates.[1]
NED coordinates are similar to ECEF in that they're Cartesian, however they can be more convenient due to
the relatively small numbers involved, and also because of the intuitive axes. NED and ECEF coordinates can
be related with the following formula:[2]
where is a 3D position in a NED system, is the corresponding ECEF position, is the
reference ECEF position (where the local tangent plane originates), and is a rotation matrix whose columns
are the north, east, and down axes. may be defined conveniently from the latitude and longitude
corresponding to :
See also
Axes conventions
Geodetic system
References
1. Cai, Guowei; Chen, Ben M.; Lee, Tong Heng (2011). Unmanned Rotorcraft Systems ([Link]
[Link]/details/unmannedrotorcra00caig). Springer. pp. 27 ([Link]
drotorcra00caig/page/n45). ISBN 978-0-85729-634-4.
2. Cai, Guowei; Chen, Ben M.; Lee, Tong Heng (2011). Unmanned Rotorcraft Systems ([Link]
[Link]/details/unmannedrotorcra00caig). Springer. pp. 32 ([Link]
drotorcra00caig/page/n50). ISBN 978-0-85729-634-4.
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