Tag: JLT

Jackson Labs offers miniature STL LEO receiver

The STL-2600 STL-capable receiver provides a GNSS-independent low SWaP-C UTC-time and location capability

Jackson Labs Technologies Inc. (JLT), a designer and manufacturer of GNSS, timing and frequency equipment, has announced the availability of the STL-2600 Satellite Timing and Location (STL) receiver designed in partnership with Satelles Inc., the STL service provider.

The STL-2600 commercial receiver provides a completely GNSS-independent, low-cost capability to generate UTC nanosecond timing and meters-accurate positioning anywhere in the world. It operates in a way similar to GPS, but without GPS or GNSS. The STL signal has 30-db (1,000 times) higher power compared to GPS signals, allowing the receiver to operate deep indoors independent of any GPS/GNSS signal.

“Useful for non-GNSS-based E911 location and UTC(NIST) timing applications, the STL-2600 receiver is deployable today to fulfill critical infrastructure PNT objectives such as those outlined in Executive Order 13905 on the responsible use of PNT in the U.S. and the emerging mandates for a GNSS-independent backup solution in Europe,” said Said Jackson, president of JLT.

The STL-2600 receiver is also useful in marine applications where GNSS signals are regularly denied or manipulated and for stationary high-accuracy timing applications such as 5G.

The STL-2600 receiver can be directly connected to JLT’s GPS Transcoder products for glue-less retrofit capability of existing customer legacy GPS-only receiver systems to Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou, QZSS and SBAS as well as adding the STL and optional atomic holdover capability to these legacy systems.

The receiver module combines a custom-designed STL L1 LEO receiver and a latest-generation concurrent-GNSS receiver with a disciplined high-stability reference oscillator sub-system on one circuit board.

Features and specifications of the STL-2600

Photo: JLT

Form factor: 1.4″ x 2.0″ x 0.5″ (36mm x 51 mm x 13mm)

Switching modes: User-selectable automatic and manual switching between GNSS and STL signal reception during jamming or manipulation events

Integration: Incorporates into user systems just like a legacy GNSS receiver would using NMEA and SCPI serial messages, with the use of standard NMEA messages for STL positioning and timing features making system integration trivially easy

Oscillator options and performance: Internal high-stability TXCO standard; capable of directly and gluelessly disciplining numerous optional DOCXO, CSAC and rubidium oscillators for holdover capability, with ultra-stable ADEV performance from 0.1s to infinity with better than 10E-12 stability when using a DOCXO or Rubidium as the holdover oscillator

Low-power consumption: Ranges between 0.7 W to 1.45 W (depending on configuration) allowing for long-term battery operation for use cases without AC power

Antenna support: One GNSS/STL combined standard; optional support of a second antenna for diversity

Interfaces: TTL serial port standard; optional USB serial port allow easy evaluation and design-in

Upgrades: One-button firmware updates performed in situ through any of the serial ports

The receiver includes JLT’s proven frequency and timing disciplining and holdover IP deeply embedded into the entire signal chain for ultra-low phase noise performance and high-stability 1PPS and 10 MHz operation, even when using only the built-in TCXO oscillator.

The unit operates fully autonomously from just a USB cable and is compatible with a customized version of the GPSCon software — offered at no cost to JLT customers — for monitoring and control.

The STL signal has been deployed worldwide since 2016 and can be evaluated and implemented SWaP-C-effectively today via this receiver module.

The STL-2600 is available now. Contact Jackson Labs Technologies for configuration and pricing information.

February 17, 2021
New JLT Micro-Transcoder provides GPS firewall retrofit

Jackson Labs Technologies Inc. (JLT) released its tiny, new Micro-Transcoder, a full-constellation, stand-alone, real-time 10-channel GPS simulator. The unit can act as a GPS firewall to identify and block jamming and spoofing attempts, and to provide an alternate PNT source during fully GPS-denied operation.

JLT is a designer and manufacturer of GNSS, timing and frequency equipment.

Photo: JLT

The one-inch-square Micro-Transcoder module allows glueless retrofitting of existing GPS equipment by upgrading systems with secure and assured positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) capability, the company said. It achieves hardening of the customers’ GPS equipment by splicing the unit in between the existing antenna and the users’ GPS receiver.

It takes the output of any secure PNT source — inertial navigation system (INS), SAASM, M-code, Iridium STL, or concurrent GNSS receiver — and encodes (RF modulates) the baseband PNT and UTC timing information into a standard GPS L1 RF signal.

This RF signal can then be received by any legacy GPS receiver.

The unit is based on JLT’s CLAW GPS simulator and RSR transcoder technologies, and includes a stand-alone full-constellation 10-channels real-time GPS simulator with integrated high-stability timing reference, as well as an internal GNSS receiver for monitoring the RF output signal for quality and accuracy.

The unit will transmit a standard UTC time, position, velocity and heading GPS L1 RF signal by simply applying 3.3V power to it.

The Micro-Transcoder can also be operated as a generic high-performance GPS simulator with built-in GPS Disciplined Oscillator, and is supported by a comprehensive free Windows application program downloadable from the JLT website.

The Windows application allows control of all the simulation aspects, creating and storing simulation vector commands, and testing user equipment for leap-second and GPS week rollover event compatibility to identify weaknesses in user equipment.

The unit does not require a PC to be connected to it to function. This makes embedded operation as easy as applying power, and connecting the units’ RF output to the antenna input of any GPS receiver.

By generating a legacy RF GPS signal from any secure PNT source, the Micro-Transcoder allows users to maintain their investment in fielded legacy GPS equipment. Example applications include retrofitting financial transaction time servers with CSAC or rubidium atomic clock holdover capability, and adding GPS RF output capability to concurrent GNSS receivers to allow reception of L1, L2, L3, L5 GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS, Iridium STL, or any other satellite-based navigation signal to legacy GPS receivers.

It can also be used to add inertial navigation system (INS) capability to vehicles and aircraft.

None of these applications require any modifications to be made to the legacy GPS receiver system; all configurations are done externally using the Micro-Transcoder Windows application or a standard terminal program, and on the assured PNT source.

A real-world customer application is a data-center where communications equipment required a GPS signal to operate. The user wanted to prevent vulnerabilities that an external antenna would have introduced. In this scenario, the Micro-Transcoder provided a fixed-position GPS RF signal to a number of the data centers’ GPS receivers, and allowed the GPS user equipment to operate properly without exposing it to the possibility of external jamming or spoofing.

At 0.97 x 0.97 x 0.4 inches and with less than 0.95W power consumption, the Micro-Transcoder is small enough to be designed into emerging assured PNT products, allowing them to communicate gluelessly to existing legacy GPS infrastructure.

December 5, 2018
Jackson Labs offers CLAW simulator

Jackson Labs Technologies Inc. (JLT) is offering the CLAW GPS/GNSS simulator. Designed with small size, weight and power (SWAP), the CLAW is only slightly larger than a standard deck of cards.

CLAW targets applications that require small, low-power and low-cost GNSS synthesis with repeatable and highly accurate GNSS RF signals such as production testing of GNSS receivers, simulating GNSS anomalies such as leap-second events, 1023 GPS Week roll-overs, simulated operation in inaccessible locations around the world, real-time transcoding of different GNSS systems, and testing using dynamically user-configured RF signal levels.

With nanosecond-accurate encoding, CLAW is particularly suited to allow easy stress-testing of GPSDO frequency and timing reference products such as JLT’s GNSDOs under various different mission scenarios, the company said.

The CLAW GNSS simulator is a no-frills solution that contains real-time processing hardware to simulate GPS constellations without the need to connect any external equipment other than a USB power source or power supply.

Providing a real-time computed RF output signal rather than an offline file-playback differentiates CLAW from competitive solutions that are only capable of recording and playback operation in non-real-time, or require offline computation of data files using external computers that are played back on the simulation device.

CLAW is a completely self-contained, ruggedized, miniature, real-time hardware GPS simulator.

Navigation coordinates and 1PPS timing pulses can be provided in real-time through the NMEA and SCPI compatible USB interface or via the built-in RS-232 interface, and are encoded in the CLAW into RF GPS signals in real-time with nanosecond-level accuracy and minimal delay.

Position, velocity and timing (PVT) information may be provided as a simple NMEA stream from an external source such as an inertial navigation system (INS), Galileo/GLONASS/BeiDou/SAASM GNSS receiver, and CLAW will encode this PVT data into standard L1 C/A GPS RF signals in real-time with minimal phase/position shifts. This allows real-time GNSS transcoding of any other GNSS standard simply by connecting an external GNSS receiver, INS system or PVT source to the RS-232 inputs of the CLAW, allowing retrofit of existing legacy equipment with the latest GNSS systems.

CLAW includes glueless drivers for Rockwell Collins Remote Secure Receiver (RSR Puck) among others, allowing transcoding of assured, secure L2 P(Y) code into legacy L1 C/A code in real time to retrofit commercial receivers with military P(Y) capability. CLAW also allows user-entry of ephemeris and almanac information, providing a means to simulate any past or future GPS constellation and time/date event, the company added.

CLAW was designed with a particular emphasis to encoding the optional externally-provided 1PPS GPS system time with nanosecond-level accuracy targets, allowing accuracy testing of GPS timing and frequency devices on top of simply providing a positioning/velocity reference. CLAW initially will support GPS L1 C/A code encoding with up to 12 satellites, and later versions will support additional GNSS systems such as L2 GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo.

A comprehensive cost-free optional user application for Windows will be offered that allows control and monitoring of the unit, creation of simulation scenarios using Google Earth and manual waypoint entry, among other options. The unit also can be controlled via simple serial terminal commands, or various other available public-domain freeware programs.

Once position information is stored in the units’ NVRAM, the unit will generate GPS RF constellations within seconds upon power-up and thus does not require any user interaction other than plugging in the power supply.

CLAW contains a highly accurate and stable internal 10-MHz reference oscillator that may optionally be synchronized by an external 1PPS reference, 10-MHz reference, or both. CLAW supports a user-selectable RF signal attenuation range of 63 dB in 0.5-dB steps, allowing a wide range of RF signal levels to be generated with high accuracy and power-level resolution. Antenna DC power consumption also can be controlled via software command.

CLAW can be powered by its USB interface, or by a 6.5V to 28V DC power feed, and consumes less than 1.7W allowing extended operation of 24 hours or more from low-cost ubiquitous USB consumer battery packs.

November 13, 2017