Compact Passive Millimeter Wave Sensor for GPS-denied Navigation

Under the proposed effort, PSI will leverage a novel pmmW imaging technology developed under a prior Navy program to realize the low size, weight, and power sensors required for UAV implementation. This technology is based on an optical upconverted distributed aperture technology that can make large effective apertures in low SWaP form factors thereby maximizing achievable resolution. This sensor technology has already reached TRL 6 with successful flight tests on rotorcraft for DVE mitigation. Key elements of this effort will be to further reduce and integrate the sensor nodes and optical processor to make the technology better suited for the stricter SWaP constraints imposed by UAV platforms. Additionally, under this effort PSI will utilize existing phenomenology modelling tools and data from previous flight tests to develop sensor requirements and CONOPs for UAV navigation using pmmW sensors. These same modelling tools will also be utilized to predict the ability of the sensor to track navigation paths in terrain and geographic databases when operating in GPS denied environments. Based on these findings in phase I, a preliminary sensor design for a representative UAV platform has been outlined, which will be built and tested under the proposed Phase II effort.