Alternate PNT with eLoran (APEL) for Military Navigation in GPS Denied Environments

The objective of this SBIR program is to demonstrate a navigation system that can provide continuous position estimate accurate to better than 100 m (with 10 m goal) in GPS-contested environments by augmenting a military GPS receiver with eLoran signals and other small size, weight and power (SWaP) sensors. With eLoran signals being high-powered and transmitted at low-frequency, they are not disrupted by the type of jammers employed to deny GPS and hence can provide an affordable, and reliable backup to GPS.In the Phase I study, Mayflower will develop the APEL system specifications and architecture through simulation modeling and analysis and evaluate its feasibility in providing the required positioning accuracies to the specified platforms. In the follow-on Phase II program, we will perform a detailed design and implementation of the APEL system prototype and demonstrate its performance in relevant GPS degraded scenarios. We anticipate the APEL navigation system to achieve TRL 6 maturity at the completion of the Phase II program.In the follow-on Phase III program, Mayflower will refine the APEL navigation system implementation for performance, robustness, and reliability, and package all the sensors and antennas to meet the SWaP requirements of smaller military platforms.