Assured PNT from IMSAR’s Low-SWaP Radar Systems

Peer and near-peer adversaries are proficient at disabling GPS receivers, which both manned and unmanned aircraft systems typically rely on to perform Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) and to successfully complete their missions. IMSAR proposes to use its existing, commercial, low-Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems to provide robust PNT for a variety of platforms, from small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) to larger manned and even stratospheric platforms, in GPS-degraded and denied environments, in all weather, day and night. IMSAR’s proposed GPS-denied PNT system provides enhanced guidance and navigation even in Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) environments and can also perform a variety of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) functions, which prevents the need for an additional sensor solely for GPS-denied PNT missions. IMSAR’s proposed GPS-denied PNT solution includes Machine-Learning (ML) algorithms, which will provide an association between existing optical imagery and newly collected SAR imagery. The proposed effort will integrate these algorithms with IMSAR's existing radar hardware to allow image registration to be done in real time. Being inherently Low Probability of Detect and Intercept (LPD/LPI) in nature, IMSAR’s radar systems have a reduced likelihood of being exploited by adversaries.