2012 Weems Award

Presented to: Colonel Jon M. Anderson

Citation: For sustained contributions to modernized military GPS, leading to enhanced capabilities for U.S. and Allied military operations in a navigation warfare environment.

From 1996 to 1998, then-Capt Anderson led early Navwar activities, sponsoring and guiding development of tools still used today to analyze Navwar environments. He instilled a system focus on efforts to increase military robustness; guided early Navwar studies that led to new and important technologies including ultratight coupling, antijam antennas with digital processing, and advanced adaptive space-time processing; led a world-class GPS signal development team to assess options for spectrum sharing with spectral separation between GPS civil and military signals; and then led the team that designed the M-Code signal. This effort led to multiple innovations including Binary Offset Carrier spreading modulations, punctured signal acquisition, and the application and development of new signal combining methods for efficient signal transmission from satellites.

From 2004 to 2007, then LtCol Anderson led a small cell of GPS experts on the Air Staff in the Pentagon. His work with OSD finalizing the Navwar Selective Area Review and Navwar Implementation guidance led to the establishment of the Joint Navigation Warfare Center under U.S. Strategic Command; the first international program with U.S. allies for development of electronic attack capabilities. He developed the plan for incremental increases in M-Code power throughout the GPS III program. He was the U.S. lead for GPS-Galileo National Security Compliance Criteria Consultations with the EU and led the joint design of the MBOC spectrum for GPS and Galileo signals. He initiated State Department approval of Direct Commercial Sales, leading to much faster acquisition of military receivers by U.S. allies.

Most recently, as Program Manager for the Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) program, he restructured the program for developing next generation military GPS receivers to build an executable program that delivers M-Code capability to military users. He also proposed the Common GPS Module concept for acquiring core M-Code receiver capabilities to support many diverse applications and form factors.