Previous Abstract Return to Session C5 Next Abstract

Session C5: Navigation and Positioning

NAVFEST – 20 Years of Cost-Effective GPS NAVWAR Testing
Geneva Quinn, Nicholas George, Raymond Johnson, Orlando Padilla, Sean Abrahamson, and Kalyn Jones, 746th Test Squadron
Date/Time: Friday, Sep. 20, 9:20 a.m.

For 20 years, the 746th Test Squadron (746 TS), located at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, has planned and executed an annual innovative Global Positioning System (GPS) interference event at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), NM. This event, most recently known as NAVFEST or Navigation Festival, provides a low-cost, realistic, GPS jamming environment for testing GPS-based navigation systems in GPS-contested environments.
Navigation Warfare (NAVWAR) testing, by both the operational and developmental test communities within the Department of Defense (DoD), has increased significantly over the past two decades. The 746 TS currently projects more than 500 days of NAVWAR mission support in fiscal year 2024, with multiple mission days occurring concurrently at different geographic locations. As program priorities and range schedule limitations drive increased competition and demand for available test windows, the 746 TS recognizes a continued need to provide a cost-effective, operationally realistic venue to facilitate simultaneous execution of multiple customers with independent, and often dissimilar, test and training objectives.
NAVFEST 2024, a two-week GPS NAVWAR test event, occurred in May 2024, included more than 25 participating customer organizations including multi-service DoD agencies, several defense contractors, civil organizations, and foreign nations. Customer objectives were varied in scope but included refining tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) for identifying, mitigating, and operating through GPS jamming, demonstrating NAVWAR situational awareness technologies in stressing GPS environments, and evaluating the performance of anti-jam systems and modernized navigation sensors against operationally realistic threats. Participants tested their diverse technologies on ground test vehicles, on aircraft and as dismounted equipment within the GPS electronic warfare environment. The 746 TS tailored individual levels of customer support according to the needs of the specific customer’s test objectives, including, developing jamming scenarios, coordinating frequency clearances, securing range space, instrumenting reference systems and spectrum analyzers, deploying personnel and equipment, operating threat assets, and processing reference data.
The 746 TS created a custom test matrix of GPS electronic warfare (EW) scenarios designed to maximize efficiency in accomplishing customer objectives while streamlining system deployment and test time, with total support costs shared among participating test organizations, resulting in significant overall cost savings to each customer participant.
This presentation details the overall NAVFEST 2024 test design strategy, including specific GPS jamming scenarios developed and executed, as well as plans for future NAVFEST events.

Previous Abstract Return to Session C5 Next Abstract