METHODS FOR LIFTING AND LOWERING MAGNETIC ANOMALIES FOR MAGNETIC NAVIGATION

A system and method for magnetic navigation are provided. The system comprises a navigation system for a vehicle, at least one processor operatively coupled with the navigation system, and a magnetic navigation module operatively coupled with the processor. The magnetic navigation module including instructions, executable by the processor, to perform a method comprising selecting latitude, longitude, and altitude ranges for the vehicle that is expected to travel in a region of interest; obtaining one or more magnetic anomaly maps for the region of interest; choosing a base Earth-centered, Earth-fixed (ECEF) plane and coordinates for the one or more magnetic anomaly maps; constructing an integration mesh on the base ECEF plane; and performing a Strakhov iteration process on the integration mesh to compute values of magnetic anomalies on a base source. The method then computes an estimated magnetic anomaly at a given point in space using alternative computation approaches.