Tightly-Integrated High-Integrity Navigation System

Toyon proposes to develop a high-integrity navigation system for SWAP-constrained platforms that provides improved electronic protection against broadband and narrowband jammers, as well as repeaters, spoofers, and multipath using a small-aperture antenna. The navigation performance of the system is enhanced through new electronic support capabilities that include direction finding, attitude determination, and jammer geolocalization. In particular, the position and 3-D attitude estimate of the navigation system is significantly more robust during periods when fewer than four satellites are available due to jamming or line-of-sight obstructions. Moreover, tactical-grade 3-D attitude performance is obtained with commercial-grade inertial measurement unit (IMU) components. A highly integrated system design provides an ultra-tightly coupled GPS/IMU architecture with the IMU and antenna having a common center-of-mass, thereby reducing lever-arm errors. New software-controlled GaN LNA technology is proposed to improve the dynamic range of the receiver during high input-power (jamming) conditions without increasing the front-end noise figure. In addition, compressive sampling techniques and variable bit processing algorithms further reduce power consumption, thereby making the proposed Miniature Attitude-determining Anti-jam GPS/INS (MAAGI) system highly attractive for small platforms with severe size, weight and power (SWAP) constrains. Furthermore, the MAAGI architecture is scalable to larger platforms with equally enticing benefits.