Joint Processing of Multi-band Signals with Information Assurance

ABSTRACT: The Global Positioning System (GPS) is relied upon as a source of accurate Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) information by both civilians and the military. Ideally, GPS receivers receive navigation signals from the satellites, process the information, and provide correct PNT solutions. As GPS has now become ubiquitous in weapon platforms, increased vulnerability due to the advances in enemy jamming and spoofing techniques must be protected against. As additional navigation bands become available, a new generation of receivers, which receive and process multiple bands, will become the standard for high precision navigation, jamming resistance and spoofing mitigation. The Nu-Trek team will develop a high performance, universal, wideband GNSS front end called NT/GNSS/01 which will be transition ready at the end of Phase II. Key considerations for the feature set of the NT/GNSS/01 include: (1) Wideband, to receive all available bands; (2) Common, to work with most GPS/GNSS receivers; (3) Upgradable, to enable the incremental addition of bands without changing the RFIC, which significantly reduces the risk and cost associated with receiver upgrades; (4) Jam resistant; and (5) Low power and low noise. BENEFIT: In the next 5 years, 10-20 new navigational signals will become available to the user. There are many advantages to utilizing multiple bands. This includes higher precision, cross-checking for jamming and spoofing, mitigation of multi-path effects and ionospheric effects, etc. Currently the military has no means of receiving the broad bandwidth of GNSS signals. Although GNSS front-ends have been developed in the commercial sector they are composed of one RF front-end per band. Nu-Treks solution provides a single front-end ASIC which covers all GNSS bands and is characterized by high linearity, flexible frequency plan, low power and low noise. The flexible architecture enables the Nu-Trek front end to support most military receivers as well as the incremental addition of navigation bands.