High-performance Extremely Low Power GPS Receiver Card (HELPR)

Coherent Logix, Incorporated (CLX) proposes to develop a military High-performance Extremely Low Power GPS Receiver (HELPR) card suitable for use with soldier handheld PDAs, micro-UAVs, and unattended ground sensors. HELPR will be similar to existing PDA cards for civilian GPS receivers, but will achieve much greater position and time accuracy by receiving and processing military GPS signals on both the L1 and L2 frequencies. The goal is a small, lightweight, power-efficient, precision positioning card. Power management is a key factor for success. Receiver analog functions will be shifted to digital signal processing. This effort is supported by a much larger program at CLX to develop extremely high-performance per watt, reconfigurable (on-the-fly) digital signal processor (DSP) CMOS integrated circuits based on its patent-pending HyperX architecture. Utilizing a reconfigurable DSP for IF signal processing and code correlation, HELPR will have the flexibility to use any and all codes broadcast by satellites and terrestrial stations for radio navigation, and will support a wide variety of power conservation and noise/interference mitigation strategies. In Phase I, CLX will design hardware and signal processing software to achieve precise positioning and time transfer. In Phase II, CLX will design, build, and test a functional prototype HELPR card.