GPS Interference Rejection using Adaptive Polarization and Spatial Filtering

GPS user equipment is subject to interference from jammers both at the horizon and above the horizon. This interference degrades the reliability and accuracy of GPS receivers used for navigation and/or targeting. This is a major concern for any militaryGPS equipment, but particularly for the Air Force, since aircraft are susceptible to line-of-sight propagation from many directions over a very wide area. Degradation of GPS service will cause Air Force pilots to rely upon less accurate navigationalsystems, and thereby forfeit the advantage offered by the highly accurate GPS equipment.For Phase I of this research effort, Luna Innovations will collaborate with a major university antenna systems research group, to investigate the optimal design criteria for an adaptive antenna system that can simultaneously provide spatial and polarizedrejection filtering of interfering signals. Luna Innovations will analyze candidate systems technologies such as adaptive/reconfigurable antenna elements, array architectures, adaptive algorithms, analog and digital beamforming, and polarization control.Analyses of technical performance, power requirements, and systems cost will be performed. The effort will focus on providing a computer simulation / demonstration of the key interference rejection concepts that will meet the required anti-jammingperformance criteria of the Air Force. Researchers at Luna Innovations envision a significant market potential for effective anti-jam or interference rejecting GPS antenna systems. With the widespread use of GPS and the increasing proliferation of RF systems, both DoD and commercialapplication users can benefit from this technology. The current projected utilization volume is quite large and is growing significantly.