A Cutting-Edge Submersible GPS Enhancement and Playback System for Challenged Navigation

Navigation for submarines is a complex process that integrates GPS with today"s most advanced inertial measurement units (IMU) and stable clock references. But utilizing GPS signals for submarine navigation is a tremendous challenge in an environment where the submarine only surfaces for short durations on the order of a few minutes. This puts tremendous pressure on military off the shelf (MOTS) GPS receivers that may be unable to lock due to the length of time that the GPS signals can be seen by the receiver and the potential for simultaneous GPS jamming or spoofing. A promising solution to this problem is for the submarine surface for a short period of time to collect data that will subsequently be post-processed in an environment that uses highly advanced algorithms built onto a powerful receiving and computing platform. For the project, we will develop a submersible GPS enhancement and playback system using a high-performance RF receiver in combination with an advanced computing system. We will also develop and test algorithms that minimize time-to-first-fix (TTFF) in jamming and spoofing environments.