L3Harris provided a detailed digital map of Blacksburg, Virginia, to aid in the development of a Navigation Performance Forecast for UAVs, specifically for beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights.
L3Harris used a novel method of 3D map generation using a deep stack of high-resolution satellite imagery and artificial-intelligence technology without the time or expense of a site visit. This detailed mapping technology, known as multi-view photogrammetry, was used in a pilot study to determine the viability of using modern, automated, mapping technologies to build a scalable methodology that can be applied to very large-size mapping programs, potentially covering the urban areas of North America and Western Europe.
The company is using these 3D maps with its GNSS forecast technology to accurately predict GPS performance for UAS flight planning and operation. This prediction helps the unmanned aircraft service supplier and UAS operator ensure safe operations.
The L3Harris Geospatial Data Products team provided 2D and 3D products, including the vector map shown above.
L3Harris Technologies will help the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) develop artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) systems to help reduce the amount of time it takes to decipher usable intelligence from increasing amounts of data collected from space and airborne assets.
L3Harris will research, develop and demonstrate an AI/ML interface using data science techniques under a new multimillion-dollar contract to support DOD applications.
“L3Harris’ work will allow the DOD to turn massive volumes of data into actionable intelligence,” said Ed Zoiss, president, Space and Airborne Systems, L3Harris. “The abundance of data collected by space and airborne assets is only increasing. The findings of this research will directly address the data processing challenges within the DOD and intelligence community.”
Awarded by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, the contract supports the DOD’s initiative to accelerate the integration of big data and AI/ML within the agency.
L3Harris will perform the work in Rochester, New York; Melbourne, Florida; and Herndon, Virginia.
Satellite NTS-3 above Earth. (Illustration: Lt. Jacob Lutz, AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate)
L3Harris Technologies is on track to begin building the U.S. Air Force’s first Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) after completing the program’s critical design review.
According to L3Harris, it will integrate the program’s experimental payload with an ESPAStar Platform, planned for launch in 2022. The system is designed to augment space-based position, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities for warfighters.
The NTS-3 payload features a modular design, and the experiment will demonstrate capabilities that can be accomplished through a stand-alone satellite constellation or as a hosted payload.
“Collaboration with our customers has enabled us to move rapidly through important milestones to design this experimental satellite,” said Ed Zoiss, president, space and airborne systems, L3Harris. “Our goal is to deliver new signals to support rapidly evolving warfighter missions.”
The Space Enterprise Consortium selected L3Harris for the $84 million contract in 2018 as the prime system integrator to design, develop, integrate and test NTS-3. The NTS-3 will examine ways to improve the resiliency of the military’s PNT capabilities. It will also develop key technologies relevant to the GPS constellation, with the opportunity for insertion of these technologies into the GPS IIIF program, L3Harris said.
The program is a collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Space and Missile Systems Center, U.S.Space Force, and Air Force Lifecycle Management Center.
A couple of interesting drone applications came up this month — marine smoke emission monitoring and studies from a little known European drone manufacturer.
Monitoring marine emissions
Climate change: Some might say these are words we don’t really need to hear. Such a big to-do about how much human activity is affecting the weather changes that we are now seeing globally. Or is it all part of a natural cycle that the Earth is going through as many might say?
I don’t really want to get into that argument, but it would seem useful that someone is doing something to reduce the use of dirty fuels by ships. After all, we seemed to readily acquiesce to unleaded fuel for our vehicles without a lot of protest; why would we accept this as the norm when marine transport still uses dirty bunker fuel, belching out a significant amount of pollution?
If it’s good for people and their cars, and we quite possibly incurred some costs getting there, why not stick it on the marine industry too?
So that’s what the International Maritime Organization (IMO) did in January this year, reducing the allowable sulphur content in marine fuel from 3.5 to 0.5%. Enforced under the international convention for the prevention of pollution from ships, this is aimed at cutting sulphur oxide emissions from ships by 77%, equivalent to a reduction of about 8.5 million metric tons annually.
That’s the tricky bit – enforcement. Ships spend most of their time miles away from land, so knowing what their smoke emissions contain is somewhat difficult. Now (this is where I manage to tie things back to what I’m supposed to be reporting on) its useful that Schiebel, along with its partner operator Nordic Unmanned, thought about enforcement of the new regulations.
Schiebel Camcopter S-100. (Photo: Schiebel)
With a range of up to 200 kilometers (~125 miles) the Camcopter S-100 can get out to the shipping lanes to check on what’s coming out of the smokestacks. Equipped with an automatic identification system (AIS), a sulphur sniffing sensor and an L3 Harris Wescam MX-10 real-time electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera, the “enforcement drone” can determine which ship it’s flying over, what the smoke plume sulphur content might be, and even take geo-coded pictures to show in which jurisdiction the ship is sailing. If necessary, it can even take pictures of who’s throwing what at the overflying UAV.
In recent tests, the Camcopter flew out of Gniben, Denmark, where European regulations on emissions applied, and marine exhaust fumes are limited to contain no more than 0.1 percent sulphur oxide. The Camcopter S-100 performed two 4- hour flights and provided real-time readings of the sulphur level in ships’ exhaust plumes.
With these successful tests in the bag, Nordic Unmanned has indicated its capabilities to worldwide maritime authorities that they are ready and able to help enforce the new IMO regulations.
European-built multi-rotor drone
Acecore Technologies in the Netherlands makes multi-rotor drones which have found some unique applications:
The NEO 8-rotor UAV. (Photo: Acecore)
Stringing power-lines using NEO (SPIE website)
In order to extend power transmission line capacity, the approach used is often to first pull a lead cable. This normally involves several power company personnel and a whole bunch of specialized equipment.
However, in a first-of-its-kind test, SPIE Nederland used an Acecore NEO drone to pull a lead cable over 150 meters between high-voltage pylons.
Equipped with suitable cameras and other sensors, Acecore drones have also been used for power-line and gas-plant thermal inspection, movie making (including Game of Thrones), live broadcasts, autonomous aerial surveying, and tethered security applications. They also make crop health monitoring possible.
Designed with durability in mind, Acecore drones are weather-proof, built with strong carbon-fiber frames, have triple redundant autopilots, and are ADS-B-ready to broadcast GPS position to support sense-and-avoid capability.
Acecore is also promoting the fact that its drones and controllers are manufactured entirely with European parts. In other words, they would like to grab a chunk of DJI’s huge market share by jumping on an apparent global move to switch over from Chinese sourced goods and equipment.
So, drones are taking on environmental monitoring. They’re reducing the environmental impact of transmission-line build-out. And they’re moving toward building drones locally — all are interesting new applications of unmanned aircraft systems.
L3Harris Technologies has reached a major milestone in the U.S. Air Force’s Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) project — passing the preliminary design review that defines the spacecraft’s path to delivery and allows the program to move to the next phase of development.
NTS-3 is an experimental program examining ways to improve the resiliency of the military’s positioning, navigation and timing capabilities. It will also develop key technologies relevant to the Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation, with the goal of future transition to the GPS IIIF program.
In collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Space and Missile Systems Center, and United States Space Force, L3Harris is combining experimental antennas, flexible and secure signals, increased automation, and use of commercial command and control assets.
Satellite NTS-3 closeup. (Illustration: Lt. Jacob Lutz, AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate)
“The NTS-3 vanguard is an experimental, end-to-end demonstration of agile, resilient space-based positioning, navigation, and timing,” said Arlen Biersgreen, Air Force NTS-3 program manager. “It has the potential for game-changing advancements to the way the Air Force provides these critical capabilities to warfighters across the Department of Defense. The commitment demonstrated by United States Space Force to partner with AFRL and support technology transition was a key element in NTS-3 being designated as an Air Force vanguard in September 2019.”
The Space Enterprise Consortium selected L3Harris for the $84-million contract in 2018 as the prime system integrator to design, develop, integrate and test NTS-3, including ground mission applications.
“We have moved from contract award to finishing an early design review in under one year, which is an amazing accomplishment for a satellite development program that normally takes twice that amount of time,” said Ed Zoiss, President, Space and Airborne Systems, L3Harris. “We have proven we can move quickly to support the Air Force’s go-fast mission requirements.”
L3Harris has more than 40 years of experience transmitting GPS navigation signals. The company’s technology has been onboard every GPS satellite ever launched.
GPS signals are by far the single most widely used and most accurate source of navigation, positioning and timing (PNT), and this capability is deeply integrated into every aspect of our society. In particular, the timing service provided by GPS, while virtually unknown to the general public, is essential for a variety of digital operations — from performing financial transactions to operating cell phone networks to running the internet.
Of course, GPS — originally developed to guide nuclear submarines — is now vital to most military missions, and the system’s vulnerabilities are a source of great concern.
GPS has been remarkably reliable over the past quarter century. Solar flares are rare, multipath can be largely mitigated, and obstructed line-of-sight to the satellites is an acute problem only in certain environments, such as urban canyons.
The most serious intentional threats to GPS are spoofing and jamming. Jamming is more widespread — it is more easily accomplished intentionally and it also occurs unintentionally. In the defense sphere, intentional jamming is a regular occurrence. It is expected as a routine aspect of electronic warfare operations to disrupt and deceive, typically just before the shooting begins. Unintentional jamming includes recently re-emerging concern about potential interference by ultra-wideband devices.
Experts at NovAtel, Collins Aerospace, L3Harris Technologies and Honeywell address the challenges posed by jamming and the relative effectiveness of various anti-jamming approaches.
NovAtel
Tackling Jamming on Multiple Levels
Disruption by jamming of GPS’s PNT data “is occurring with a growing regularity,” said Dean Kemp, Defense Segment manager at NovAtel, part of Hexagon’s Positioning Intelligence division. The problem will only increase, given our reliance on GNSS and increasing demand for precision. In the military sphere, electronic warfare in Syria, as well as jamming in Ukraine, Korea, and Finland, “have shown that modern, high-power equipment is routinely being used to disrupt the military.”
In the civilian sphere, interference is a growing issue because of cheap and effective jammers available via the internet. People use these so-called personal privacy devices to defeat vehicle tracking devices for purposes ranging from avoiding supervision all the way to hijacking vehicles.
GNSS signals are vulnerable because the received power is so small that receivers can be disabled with an incident power in the picowatt (10-12 W) range. “Jammers come in many different forms,” Kemp said, “from low-power civil devices to complex and powerful military-grade electronic warfare systems that can disable civilian receivers from a few hundred meters to hundreds of kilometers.”
Situational Awareness. Users can fail to recognize that their GPS is being jammed, Kemp said. Beyond defending against possible jamming scenarios, it is also necessary to “identify, find, and characterize the source of interference and to provide this information to the user so that it can be used appropriately.” In the defense field, this is known as situational awareness.
Emerging jamming threats, Kemp explained, can be understood within the context of cyber and information warfare using the Cyber Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA) layered approach. It recognizes a cognitive layer — a human decision based on PNT data; a virtual layer, in which PNT data are used to inform or support networked systems; and a physical layer, the hardware used to provide and protect PNT data.
Therefore, effective anti-jamming requires that:
users understand the system’s vulnerabilities and identify when they are being jammed, so that they can resort to traditional means for positioning and navigation (but not timing)
PNT data be protected and verified before being trusted
on the physical level, there be a multi-layered and heterogeneous approach that provides assured PNT information in the presence of jamming and spoofing without quantifiable loss of accuracy.
By combining these considerations at each layer, “they form a unified view on capability,” Kemp said.
Spoofing with Pokémon. Jamming threats are evolving, employed by both civilian and state actors. Worse, these threats are augmented by spoofing. While spoofing is harder to achieve than jamming, it is potentially more concerning. “Spoofing the receiver by rebroadcasting the GNSS signals or by generating them from a simulator has become a regular occurrence,” Kemp said.
Spoofing came to public attention in 2016 when enterprising programmers designed location-deception apps to hack the Pokémon Go mobile game. Instances have since been reported worldwide. Because early spoofing demonstrations were conducted against simple GPS L1 C/A-code receivers, it was initially hoped that spoofing could be defeated by using dual- or multi-frequency receivers.
However, it has been demonstrated that multi-frequency receivers using commercially available components can also be spoofed, “at least when the receiver is using multiple frequencies of GPS,” Kemp noted. “Adding further GNSS signals will help, but the best defensive measure is to employ, if authorized, an encrypted military signal.”
Coverage Improvement Factor. Typically, the effectiveness of an anti-jam system is assessed on the basis of the jamming to signal ratio (J/S) figure in decibels, which depends on variables such as the receiver’s front-end RF bandwidth, the signal type being tracked (C/A versus P(Y) code), the signal tracking threshold of the receiver, the receiver platform dynamics, the choice of receiver oscillator, the interference type and antenna characteristics.
Difference in how manufacturers calculate J/S led to the invention of the coverage improvement factor (CIF), adopted by the GPS Joint Project Office. “CIF gives a single number that describes the effectiveness of an anti-jam system for a particular jammer scenario, given that space vehicle positions vary by elevation and azimuth,” Kemp said.
However, the use of CIF to assess the anti-jam performance is a highly technical process and the results are usually classified. He discussed current approaches to anti-jamming.
Multi-element, controlled reception pattern antennas (CRPA), which pass the good signal to the receiver while nulling out the interference, are the first line of defense. “The system can dynamically change the gain pattern of the antenna so that as the platform and jammers move, the gain pattern adapts so that nulling continues effectively.”
The use of multiple constellations and frequencies can be an effective tactic to mitigate interference, “but relies on the jammer not covering the bands of interest.”
“Obtaining actionable data on interference is almost as important as mitigation,” because it enables users to modify plans. However, “interference effects can be difficult to diagnose and complicated to track down.”
Monitoring automatic gain control can indicate jamming.
“Coupling a GNSS receiver with a robust inertial measurement unit (IMU) will provide a higher level of protection for GNSS signals due to the IMU providing reliable position, velocity and attitude even through short periods when satellite signals are blocked or unavailable.” However, IMUs are liable to drift, resulting in degraded performance.
There are many approaches to designing anti-jam systems. They must be balanced against user requirements, which vary significantly. “A layered approach is the best form of defense against jamming and spoofing,” Kemp said, starting with protecting the incoming GPS signal. “One of the highest levels of protection is from an anti-jam antenna system paired with a GNSS receiver that is tightly coupled with an IMU.”
Finally, given that jamming attacks are now to be expected on the battlefield, it is critical to train users on the best response.
Collins Aerospace
Artist’s concept: Collins Aerospace
A Potent Triumvirate of Tools
While sources of deliberate jamming are on the rise, the vast adoption of GPS means that “even the non-deliberate sources of jamming will have an asymmetric impact on end users,” said Sai Kalyanaraman, Ph.D. and Technical Fellow at Collins Aerospace. Challenges posed by jamming depend on the receiver, mission and performance needs, while the source of unintentional jamming could be “something as simple as a TV antenna that is transmitting harmonics into the GNSS band.”
Kalyanaraman outlined viable approaches to interference mitigation and anti-jamming:
Integration with inertial navigation systems (INS) can provide the platform’s attitude, which is required for beam forming. This, in turn, is required for some of the CRPA GNSS Anti-jam signal processing modes. It can also alert the user of jamming when the INS position diverges dramatically from that provided by the GPS receiver.
Use of multiple frequencies is a form of robust design against interference.
For authorized users, M-code will provide additional limited capabilities against jammers.
Integration of GNSS with other PNT sensors to help address GNSS-denied environments.
GNSS signals have the advantage that the true signal is well under the noise floor; therefore, “as long as you can characterize the noise floor adequately from the receiver design/installation perspective, anything that shows up above the noise floor typically does not belong in that slice of the spectrum,” Kalyanaraman said. Combining a CRPA, a platform orientation sensor (like an INS), and a GPS/GNSS receiver, “you have a fairly potent triumvirate of tools that you can use to help mitigate the impacts of jamming and potentially spoofing.”
Collins produces multiple variants of its digital integrated GPS anti-jam receivers (DIGAR). “Depending on which variety you choose, you can essentially have a receive apparatus that can perform basic nulling all the way up to beam-forming and direction finding and help provide resiliency against high jamming signal levels and other threats that emulate a GNSS-like signal in space,” Kalyanaraman said.
L3Harris
L3Harris develops gun-hardened anti-jam solutions for the M1156 Precision Guidance Kit Modernization program. The kit turns 155-mm artillery shells into smart weapons. Here, soldiers test the kit for accuracy. (Credit: U.S. Army/Spc. Robert Porter)
Field Tests Verify PNT Reliability
Dealing with deliberate and unintentional interference with GPS requires agreeing on the level of enhancements required, reducing the time and cost needed to integrate them into systems of systems, and “centralizing PNT generation and distribution functions on a platform to reduce user equipment redundancies and increase the leverage of future PNT enhancements,” said Dave Duggan, president of the Precision Engagement Sector at L3Harris Technologies.
The increase in interference “creates a cascading negative effect to PNT client mission systems,” Duggan said, including the systems of systems for sensing, maneuver and fires [military-speak for the use of weapon systems].” The capability of anti-jam countermeasures “scales across a range of performance, size, weight, power and cost points and can be tailored to a given threat space, improving the performance of even legacy user equipment.”
Spoofing, which inhibits receivers from forming a solution or, worse, tricks them into passing misleading PNT solutions to other systems, is a bigger challenge than jamming because it can result in aborted missions and loss of life and usually requires new receivers, Duggan said.
Duggan defines a reliable anti-jam/anti-spoof capability as one that “provides a PNT solution with a high level of confidence in its accuracy, authenticity and integrity for their applications and anticipated threat environments — all at a reasonable cost/performance point.” Confidence in the solution requires “extensive analysis, threat modeling, simulation and testing of the anti-jam/anti-spoof capability.” For this reason, “L3Harris has worked extensively in developing simulation and testing environments of the highest fidelity and continues to participate in numerous live field test events to establish that foundation.”
L3Harris develops and produces digital anti-jam antenna electronics for U.S. and allied end use.
Honeywell
Honewell’s HGuide micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) inertial measurement units (IMUs) and INS are designed to be integrated with GNSS receivers. (Photo: Honeywell)
Integrating GNSS with Inertial
Heightened awareness of intentional and inadvertent jamming threats has less to do with new types of threats and more to do with the increased importance of precise PNT coupled with more frequent instances of jamming, according to Chris Lund, senior director, HGuide Navigation and Sensors at Honeywell Aerospace.
“As applications become more reliant on highly accurate and reliable position and timing information provided by navigation systems, the consequences associated with the data not being available or not being correct quickly escalate,” Lund said.
The best way to measure the impact of a jamming threat and the capabilities of countermeasures is “to determine in actual real-world use cases whether the desired application outcome can still successfully be achieved,” Lund said.
The most promising approach to anti-jamming is integration of GNSS receivers with inertial navigation systems (INS) and other PNT systems. “Given the complementary aspects of many of the available approaches in the anti-jamming toolkit, it’s often best to leverage however many tools are available and needed to allow the application to achieve its desired outcome,” Lund said.
uAvionix has received U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval for the Vehicle Tracking Unit (VTU-20) Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) transmitter for airport surface management.
uAvionix is a designer and manufacturer of communications, navigation and surveillance (CNS) equipment for unmanned and manned aircraft.
Adhering to the performance and design assurance specifications of FAA-E-3032, the externally mounted VTU-20 ensures integration and interoperability with Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X), Airport Surface Surveillance Capability (ASSC) and ADS-B receiver surveillance solutions for airport
surface control and situational awareness.
The VTU-20 can be permanently or magnetically mounted to all airside vehicles, including utility, emergency, snow-removal and maintenance equipment. Each vehicle is clearly and uniquely identified, providing an essential addition to any surface movement guidance and control system.
The VTU-20 implements FAA-approved Squitter Transmission Maps to automatically enable transmission on airport movement areas and disable transmission in low-risk areas or outside airport airside operations.
“Ground vehicle incursions into critical safety and movement areas is on the rise. With this achievement, uAvionix continues to promote safety and common situational awareness not only in the airspace but also on the airport surface,” states Christian Ramsey, uAvionix president.
This recent uAvionix achievement will be made available through an exclusive relationship with L3Harris Technologies, Inc., a leader in surveillance and air traffic management known for the Symphony product line of airport operations and environmental compliance solutions — to promote and sell the VTU-20 in the United States.
On Sept. 19, in conjunction with the ION GNSS+ conference, GPS World hosted its annual Leadership Awards dinner. Five honorees — chosen by a panel of GNSS experts — were recognized for their outstanding recent contribution or achievement in four categories: Satellites, Signals, Services and Products.
SATELLITES AWARD: Presented by Johnathan Caldwell (left) to Mark Crews, both of Lockheed Martin. Crews accepted on behalf of Tim Hartman. (Photo: GPS World)
Satellites Award
TIM HARTMAN: Satellites Award winner
Tim Hartman, Chief Engineer, Military Space Programs, Lockheed Martin
Hartman was recognized for serving as the program manager for GPS IIRM and GPS III Space Segments. Tim’s leadership and program dedication helped support the U.S. Air Force’s decision to declare GPS III ready for launch on Oct. 17, 2017.
On Aug. 22, Lockheed Martin Space celebrated the successful launch of the second of up to 32 next-generation GPS III/IIIF satellites that the U.S. Air Force contracted the company to design and build. Lockheed Martin’s commitment to positioning, navigation and timing can be found in the exemplary performance of the 18 Lockheed Martin-built GPS IIR and IIRM satellites that are a proud part of today’s 31-satellite GPS constellation. The company also is proud to support the Air Force with its continued sustainment of the current GPS Operational Control Segment.
SIGNALS AWARD: Presented by Joe Rolli of L3Harris (left) to Ramsey Faragher. (Photo: GPS World)
Signals Award
Ramsey Faragher, Founder and CEO, Focal Point Positioning
Focal Point Positioning’s new supercorrelator approach to indoor and urban GNSS signal processing could revolutionize smartphone-based GNSS. New signal processing methods for the correlation stage of a GNSS receiver enable several seconds of coherent integration while the receiver is undergoing dynamic motions. This improves accuracy and integrity, and provides anti-spoofing and spoofer-localization capabilities — without hardware changes or requiring access to encrypted signals.
L3Harris Technologies is an agile global aerospace and defense technology innovator, delivering end-to-end solutions that meet customers’ mission-critical needs. The company provides advanced defense and commercial technologies across air, land, sea, space and cyber domains. L3Harris has approximately $17 billion in annual revenue and 50,000 employees, with customers in 130 countries.
SERVICES AWARD: Presented by Mike Shepherd of Collins Aerospace (back) to Simon Banville (front left) and Denis Laurichesse. (Photo: GPS World)
Services Award
Denis Laurichesse, Navigation Systems Department Expert, Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES)
Simon Banville, Senior Geodetic Engineer, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)
Laurichesse and Banville demonstrated instantaneous, centimeter-level, multi-frequency precise point positioning (PPP). Their work shows PPP might become, within a few years, a practical alternative to real-time kinematic (RTK) for a wide range of applications.
Collins Aerospace Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp., is a leader in technologically advanced and intelligent solutions for the global aerospace and defense industry. Created in 2018 by bringing together UTC Aerospace Systems and Rockwell Collins, Collins Aerospace has the capabilities, comprehensive portfolio and expertise to solve customers’ toughest challenges and meet the demands of a rapidly evolving global market.
PRODUCTS AWARD: Accepted by Paul Alves (left) from presenter Jeff Martin of Spirent Federal Systems. (Photo: GPS World)
Products Award
Paul Alves, P.Eng, Ph.D., Technology Manager — Correction Services, NovAtel, part of Hexagon
Alves was recognized for his work on localization of interference sources for GNSS users leveraging the Interference Tool Kit. With the ITK, users can detect and mitigate adversarial jamming of GNSS signals, as well as unintentional interference from external sources.
Spirent has more than 30 years of experience delivering the world’s best test equipment. Spirent’s test solutions for GPS and GNSS, critical infrastructure SCADA vulnerabilities, Internet L3-L7 common vulnerabilities and exposures, and mobile vulnerabilities allow the world to communicate and collaborate faster. Spirent Federal Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of Spirent Communications and was established to offer the world’s leading simulation equipment to U.S. government customers, armed services, education institutions, and prime contractors. Spirent Federal’s SimMNSA was the first to be granted Security Approval by the Global Positioning System Directorate.
PNT CHAMPS: The L3Harris team earned the most total points in all six games, and took home a trophy each. (Photo: GPS World)
PNT Games
After dinner, guests broke into teams to test their personal positioning, navigation and timing skills, precisely determined by their ability to toss rings and throw horseshoes under time pressure. Each team rotated through yard games such as ladder toss, ring toss, corn hole and horseshoes to prove who was the most accurate and resilient. The L3Harris team took home the first-place prize.
RAINBOW CONNECTION: Taking on giant pong are members of the rainbow bandana team, (from left) Sanjeev Gunawardena, Thomas Pany, Steffen Thoelert and André Hauschild. (Photo: GPS World)ORGANIZED CHAOS: Wearing different-colored bandanas, teams cheer on their team members and fight for every point. (Photo: GPS World)After all the awards were given, everyone got together for a memorable group photo. (Photo: GPS World)
A new case study focuses on improving the endurance and navigational precision of underwater autonomous systems.
Sonardyne, designer and manufacturer of underwater positioning and inertial navigation, describes the challenges to increase navigation capability for subsea monitoring and inspections. Sonardyne joined the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and L3Harris ASV on a two-year project to develop new positioning technologies to extend the limits of AUVs and UUVs.
The project — Precise Positioning for Persistent AUVs (P3AUV) — is supported with £1.4 million in funding through Innovate UK’s research and development competition for robotics and artificial intelligence in extreme and challenging environments.
Sending autonomous and unmanned underwater vehicles (AUV, also known as UUVs) out on missions that will last for days or weeks, unaided by vessels or other supporting offshore infrastructure, is a major goal for the ocean science, offshore energy and defense sectors.
Photo: Sonardyne
Sustained Ocean Observation. The research community aims for sustained ocean observation without the need for ship support, especially in ice-covered polar areas. Long-duration navigational capability is also a key enabler for persistent covert surveillance operations in the defence sector. And emerging applications include resident seabed-based systems, deep-sea mining, aquaculture and UXO surveys for renewable installations.
Autonomous AUVs would remove the need for a surface vessel, reduce risk to personnel, and reduce costs. Users could survey more seabed for longer and with fewer or even no people offshore.
The team is developing ways to provide greater positioning accuracy for long-endurance operations in deep water, while also reducing power requirements. The team will also be increasing the use of autonomy to make long baseline (LBL) positioning transponder box-in faster and easier, with onboard data processing and calibration.
High-power INS input. Central to this work is the AUV’s acoustic and inertial navigation system (INS). Low-power sensors have much lower navigation accuracy and often have to surface to correct positioning error with a GPS fix. The team seeks to integrate low- and high-power sensors to achieve high performance at much lower power consumption.
For instance, the NOC’s Autosub Long Range (ALR) uses a low-power microelectronic mechanical system (MEMS) supported by separate Doppler velocity log (DVL) and ADCP input to calculate how far it has traveled on missions, which can be several months long. To increase the ALR’s positioning accuracy over longer distances, the team is using the Sonardyne SPRINT-Nav all-in-one subsea navigation instrument alongside MEMS technology to work towards high-precision solutions that save space and power.
Image: Sonardyne
Accuracy during ascent and descent. The project also involves improving positioning accuracy when subsea vehicles transition through the water column. This is a notoriously difficult area for AUV deployments, because it relies on the Doppler velocity log (DVL) being able to lock on to the seafloor (bottom lock), so that vehicle XYZ velocities can be calculated, supported by pressure data.
However, DVLs are range limited, so there is often a period where the DVL is out of range. When there are thousands of meters of water between the surface and the seabed, this can introduce significant positioning uncertainty.
By using the acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) capability in Sonardyne’s SPRINT-Nav INS instrument (looking down) and a second Syrinx DVL (looking up), the team could then build up a layer-by-layer profile of the water column velocities to be used as tracking layers.
The objective is to reduce positioning errors significantly during both the dive and surfacing phases of an operation. Results depend on the variability of the current in any given area.
The data collected during the descent and surfacing phases can be processed to provide a full ocean-depth current profile — collection of which is required for many offshore energy projects and can be valuable for ocean research.
At the Esri 2019 User Conference, L3Harris’ Zachary Norman discusses how the company’s ENVI® (Environment for Visualizing Images) image analysis software, combined with deep learning, help with disaster response. Norman covers two scenarios where the technology can be used: flooding and forest fires, including the California Camp Fire in November 2018.
