Miniature GPS Receiver to Support Operationally Responsive Space Missions

The goal of the proposed work is to develop a single-chip, rad-hard, GPS receiver. Nu-Trek has designed and will leverage a 2-channel rad-hard (HAENS level 2) GPS receiver front-end in the proposed work. The front end will be combined with a Raytheon baseband digital signal processor (DSP) developed for the Miniature Air Launch Decoy (MALD) program and Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) missions. The key challenges to be addressed in the work are integrating all functions onto a single chip, achieving the low power requested (<1 W), mating the receiver to an ASIM for quick integration turnaround and radiation hardening the receiver to both 30 kRad TID and single event effects. Nu-Trek and Raytheon"s proposed approach integrates all functions onto a single chip, couples the receiver to the ASIM, substantially reduces power and hardens circuits through rad-hard-by-design techniques in conjunction with employing a robust processing technology (Jazz"s 0.18um SOI process). BENEFIT: Developing small, low power, quickly integrate-able space qualified technology such as GPS receivers is crucial to the success of future space missions and weapons systems. The Air Force is interested in developing such components to support future objectives to increase the life time while reducing the cost and power requirement of such technologies. The goal of the proposed work is to develop a single-chip, rad-hard, plug-and-play GPS receiver. It is being developed to support a number of activities, including the support of Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) missions for space tracking of assets and debris in LEO and GEO orbit. The first use of this technology is the Precision Tracking and Surveillance System (PTSS). Near term total ionizing dose (TID) radiation hardening goal is>30 krad and far term hardening goal is>100 krad.