Tag: SWaP-C

Advanced Navigation launches Boreas D70 digital fiber-optic gyroscope
Photo: Advanced Navigation

Advanced Navigation has announced the Boreas D70, a fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG) inertial navigation system (INS).

The D70 is the latest release in the Boreas digital FOG (DFOG) series, offering a new performance grade with superior accuracy, exceptional stability and reliability. The technology is suited to surveying, mapping and navigation across subsea, marine, land and air applications.

“We are thrilled to expand the Boreas series with the D70. It’s a system that will provide additional flexibility in the Boreas family, making ultra-high accuracy inertial navigation far more affordable than with previous FOG INS systems,” said Xavier Orr, CEO and co-founder of Advanced Navigation. “This patented technology opens the possibility for adopting FOG INS systems across a much broader range of vehicular applications, particularly autonomous vehicles and aircraft where weight and size are at a premium.”

Boreas D70 combines closed-loop DFOG and accelerometer technologies with a dual-antenna real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS receiver. These are coupled with Advanced Navigation’s artificial-intelligence-based fusion algorithm to deliver accurate and precise navigation.

The system features ultra-fast gyrocompassing, acquiring and maintaining an accurate heading under demanding conditions. While the D70 does contain a GNSS receiver, it is not required for gyrocompass operation.

Based on the company’s DFOG technology, the D70 delivers a 40% reduction in size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) when compared to systems of similar performance.
- 0.01° roll and pitch
- 0.1° secant latitude heading (gyrocompass)
- 0.01°/hour bias instability
- 10 mm position accuracy
The Boreas Series

The Boreas DFOG series features ultra-fast gyrocompassing and can acquire heading, either stationary or dynamically, in less than two minutes. The gyrocompassing allows the system to determine a highly accurate heading without any reliance on magnetic heading or GNSS.

The technology stems from Advanced Navigation’s artificial intelligence sensor-fusion algorithm allowing the system to extract significantly more information from the data. It is designed for control applications, with a high level of health monitoring and instability prevention to ensure stable and reliable data.

Advanced Navigation designed Boreas from the ground up for reliability and availability. The hardware and software are designed and tested to international safety standards and have been environmentally tested to MIL-STD-810. The system achieves a mean time between failure (MTBF) of more than 70,000 hours.

Additional features of the Boreas D70 include Ethernet, CAN and NMEA protocols, as well as disciplined timing via a PTP server and 1 PPS. An embedded web interface provides full access to all of the device’s internal functions and data. Internal storage allows for up to 1 year of data logging.

About DFOG Technology

DFOG is patented technology, which has been developed over 25 years involving two research institutions. DFOG was created to meet the demand for smaller and more cost-effective FOGs, while increasing reliability and accuracy.

The first generation of FOG, made available in 1976, used analog signals and analog-signal processing. The second generation was developed in 1994 and is still used to this day. It improved upon the first generation with a hybrid approach using an analog signal in the coil with digital signal processing.

In 2021, FOG evolved into DFOG. This third generation of FOG sets itself apart by being completely digital, providing higher performance and reliability while enabling a 40% reduction in SWaP-C.

To achieve this, three different yet complementary technologies have been developed to improve the capabilities of FOG.

Digital Modulation Techniques. DFOG uses a specially developed digital modulation technique passing spread spectrum signals through the coil. The new digital modulation technique introduced in DFOG technology allows in-run variable errors in the coil to be measured and removed from the measurements. This makes DFOG significantly more stable and reliable than traditional FOGs. It also allows a smaller FOG with less coil length to achieve the accuracy of one with a longer coil.

Revolutionary Optical Chip. By integrating five sensitive components into a single chip and removing all the fiber splices, the size, weight and power are reduced considerably while significantly improving reliability and performance.

Specially Designed Optical Coil. DFOG employs a specially designed closed-loop optical coil, developed to take full advantage of the digital modulation techniques. The design allows for optimum sensing of in-run variable coil errors using the new digital modulation technique. It also provides a very high level of protection for the optical components from shock and vibration.
November 3, 2022
Complementary PNT Takes Center Stage

Of the 60 exhibitors at the Institute of Navigation’s Joint Navigation Conference (JNC) in San Diego this year, 16 make inertial navigation systems (INS). Many of the other exhibitors integrate INS with GNSS receivers or make simulators to test those integrations. Several exhibitors make a variety of other navigation systems, using active and passive optical sensors, wheel encoders and RF systems that map beacons of opportunity. Only seven manufacturers of GNSS receivers were present.

That’s because the conference — which took place June 6-9 and focused on technical advances in positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) — was hosted by ION’s Military Division for the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Homeland Security. “From an operational perspective,” said the conference program, it focused on “advances in battlefield applications of GPS; critical strengths and weaknesses of field navigation devices; warfighter PNT requirements and solutions; and navigation warfare.” In other words, it was mostly on how to navigate in environments in which the use of GNSS is challenged or denied due to jamming.

The conference program told the story of the GNSS/PNT community’s interests and concerns. Several sessions were on complementary PNT using terrestrial RF signals of opportunity, IMUs, geophysical fields (including gravity and Earth’s magnetic field), celestial objects, ground vision and new commercial sources of space-based PNT, such as satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Other environments in which reliance on GNSS is hard or impossible — such as urban canyons, deep inside buildings, underground and underwater — pose the same navigation challenges to both military and civilian applications. Likewise, jamming is a threat to both. Therefore, several sessions focused on critical infrastructure, demonstrating that the concerns about GNSS vulnerabilities are not just military ones.

Hence the presence among the exhibitors of three manufacturers of atomic clocks, which continue to shrink in size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) and are used to assure holdover — that is, the time period required to keep networks synchronized when their primary timing source, usually GNSS, is disrupted or temporarily unavailable. Networks affected include cellphone providers, radio and television broadcasters, financial networks, and the biggest network of all, the Internet.

The JNC “experienced record attendance in both conference participants and exhibitors, hosting more than 1,000 attendees,” Lisa Beaty, ION executive director, told me. She attributed the increase to “the importance of PNT in the nation’s critical infrastructure, current innovation, programmatic funding, and the desire by the DOD community to collaborate and reconvene.” She confidently anticipates additional growth next year.

I am equally confident that much of the cutting-edge technology on display at this conference will find its way into civilian applications in the next few years. Whether in war or in urban canyons, GNSS navigation faces some of the same challenges.

July 14, 2022
BAE unveils advanced M-code receiver at ION Joint Navigation Conference

New M-code GPS receiver enables precision strike capabilities in contested environments

Image: BAE Systems

BAE Systems unveiled its newest advanced M-Code GPS receiver for guided weapons and other small applications at the ION Joint Navigation Conference, taking place this week in San Diego.

The Strategic Anti-jam Beamforming Receiver – M-Code (SABR-M) enables precise geolocation and strike capabilities in highly contested battlespaces. It delivers accurate position, velocity, altitude and timing data, as well as strong protection against GPS signal jamming and spoofing – critical capabilities for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), precision-guided munitions (PGMs), and missiles in threat environments.

SABR-M integrates receiver technology with advanced antenna electronics in a small, hardened package designed to meet challenging performance requirements, such as weapons applications. It is the most capable integrated anti-jam GPS receiver and the first integrated M-Code receiver available for weapon systems, according to BAE Systems.

“We’re making our full portfolio of military GPS solutions M-code-compatible to meet warfighters’ need for reliable positioning, navigation, and timing data to achieve their missions,” said Doug Lloyd, director of weapon systems GPS at BAE Systems. “SABR-M enables small platforms with challenging environmental conditions to get where they’re going despite interference.”

The compact (4.5 x 6 x 1 inch) SABR-M meets size, weight, power, cost (SWaP-C) and thermal requirements for space-constrained military applications. It uses advanced beamforming technology to improve GPS signal reception and counter threat signals. SABR-M is form-compatible with previous generations of the field-proven SABR receiver, which are integrated on low-cost precision weapon systems and long-range cruise strike missiles.

SABR-M will be fully qualified for production by the end of 2022. Production will take place at BAE Systems’ modern facility in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which is in the final stages of construction. The purpose-built 278,000-square-foot factory and research center will be home to 700 military GPS experts in BAE Systems’ Navigation and Sensor Systems business.

June 7, 2022
Orolia delivers its first low SWaP-C miniaturized rubidium oscillator

Photo: Orolia

Orolia has introduced a low SWaP-C miniaturized rubidium oscillator, the Spectratime mRO-50, designed to meet the latest commercial, military and aerospace requirements where time stability and power consumption are critical. The oscillator is low SWaP-C — size, weight, power and cost.

The Spectratime mRO-50 provides a one-day holdover below 1 µs and a retrace below 1 x 10^-10 in a form factor sized 50.8 x 50.8 x 19.5 millimeters. It takes up only 51 cc of volume — about one-third of volume compared to standard rubidiums — and consumes only 0.45 W of power.

he Spectratime mRO-50 miniaturized rubidium oscillator provides accurate frequency and precise time synchronization to mobile applications, such as military radio-pack systems in GNSS-denied environments. Its operating temperature of -10°C to 60°C (military version extends to -40°C to 75°C) is also suitable for UAVs and underwater applications.

Orolia is a leader in space-based atomic clocks and high-end crystal, rubidium, hydrogen maser and integrated GPS/GNSS clocks. The company also provides testing instruments for space missions that rely on high precision atomic clock technology.

Orolia’s Atomic Clocks team received the 2019 PTTI Distinguished Service Award in January for advancing the state of the art in high-stability atomic clocks and producing the only space-based passive H-maser in the world, operating on all Galileo satellites. Spectratime mRO-50 is the latest technology solution from this award-winning team.

“Through Orolia’s continuous commitment to innovation, we are proud to offer our customers more precise PNT data in a cutting-edge, lightweight form factor for mobile missions,” said Orolia’s Atomic Clocks Product Line Director, Jean-Charles Chen.

June 4, 2020