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Session C4: Military PNT User Equipment: Other

Software-Defined User Equipment for Military Aviation Platforms
Daniel Smith, James Langley, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center - AFLCMC; Jason Pontious, Air Force Research Laboratory; Brett Dickson, Timothy Kramer, and Frank Tipton, The MITRE Corporation
Location: Room 1-3
Alternate Number 1

This briefing provides an update on the Air Force initiative to develop a prototype suite of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Software Defined User Equipment (SDUE) for military users. The PNT SDUE effort seeks to develop and demonstrate Government reference standard equipment for two military navigation system modules based on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) field programmable gate array (FPGA) microelectronics. One module is antenna electronics for anti-jam and anti-spoof (AJ/AS). The other module is a receiver for encrypted Global Positioning System (GPS) and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). FPGA-based user equipment (UE) supports rapid integration of new capabilities, facilitating improved PNT reception and warfighting capabilities across the GPS/GNSS (SATNAV) spectrum. Upon successful evaluation of prototypes, the PNT SDUE effort will transition from rapid prototyping to a traditional production and sustainment acquisition program for SATNAV Software Defined Receiver (SSDR) modules and Software Defined Antenna Electronics (SDAE) modules.
The status of two pathfinder technology evaluation studies will also be discussed in this briefing. The Janus pathfinder began in 2019 and is helping the PNT community understand and address the procedural and technical challenges associated with implementing COTS FPGA-based architectures for military GPS UE. The Janus study is being worked by the MITRE Corporation with oversight provided by PNT Program Office and AFRL Sensors Directorate and is expected to culminate in 2025 with a determination letter from the GPS Security Certification Review Board (SCRB). Key stakeholders include the US Air Force (AF Futures, Air Force Research Labs), US Space Force (Space Systems Command), and US Navy (PMW/A 170, NIWC).
The Resilient Antenna Electronics (RAE) Engineering Capability Technology Demonstration (ECTD) pathfinder began in FY22 and is helping define a non-proprietary, standard digital antenna electronics interface between beam-steering AJ/AS antennas and SATNAV receivers. Evaluations include analysis of the anti-jam performance of selected multi-element antennas with signals across multiple GPS/GNSS frequency bands. This study is being worked by MITRE and The Oho State University (OSU) with oversight provided by AFRL Sensors Directorate and AFLCMC PNT Program Office. In addition to developing the Government RAE Interface Control Document (ICD), MITRE and OSU will provide a reference implementation that uses OSU’s nulling and beam-steering RAE prototype and MITRE’s GNSS Test Architecture (GNSSTA) receiver platform. This pathfinder study is expected to culminate in 2025 with a demonstration of military utility against a Government-provided scenario.

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