UK Development of a High Integrity GPS Guidance Enhanced Receiver

Mr Andrew Maloney, Mr Bruce Lumsden, Mr Peter McIlroy,Mr Graeme Myers, Mr Richard Hunt

Abstract:	The UK Defence Evaluation and Research Ageney (DERA) has developed a High Integrity GPS Guidance Enhanced Receiver (HIGGER) to support a variety of future aircraft navigation, guidance and control applications on behalf of the UK Ministry of Defence. The primary aim of the research programme is to provide high accuracy, robust guidance information for aircraft launc~ rendezvous and recovery. The result will be an improved all weather navigation and guidance performance that will expand the operating limits for the recove~ of rotary and fixed wing aircraft to ships at sea. It will also improve the capability of aircraft to operate ftom austere and restricted sites, and perform airborne formation tasks including in flight refueling. The HIGGER system will support piloted, autopilot and uninhabited air vehicle operations. The HIGGER development is being carried out for DERA by Raytheon Systems Limited. The DERA is providing systems integration and trials evaluation. The programme is divided into two phases, the fust phase objective, which has been completed, was to produce a HIGGER I relative guidance system capable of 3m R95 positioning. The second phase objective, currently in development is to produce a HIGGER II system capable of 0.3m R95 positioning. Both systems must be capable of provide guidance information at 10Hz with low latency. A robust position solution with high integrity is essential for aircraft recovery. This paper describes how the performance objectives have been met by the HIGGER design. The HIGGER I prototypes have been developed by Raytheon Systems from existing STR2515 5 channel P(Y) GPS receivers, which are also in service with UK, C130, Merlin Nimrod and Sea King aircraft. The HIGGERs employ a 12 channel parallel architecture to provide an ‘All-in-View’ solution with PPS RAIM and WAGE. A suite of Kahnan filters provides various modes of operation including a relative navigation mode, a differential mode, a tightly coupled GPS/INS mode, and a standalone GPS mode, For both the relative and differential modes a datalink is a key element of the system. The HIGGER I has recently completed flight trials. The testing methodology is described and the results are presented. The paper also details the HIGGER II development progress. This involves the application of a PPS real time KCPT wide-lane solution on 24 chatmel dual frequency receivers. Future plans and developments are discussed including narrow-lane KCPT solutions, relative RAIM and enhanced reversionary modes. Future HIGGER developments will be centred on an enhanced double-coupled Kahnan filter. This will maximise the benefits of relative integrated GPS/INS performance with KCPT. The research has demonstrated a robust guidance system for aircratl launch, rendezvous and recovery based on GPS. The HIGGER I system will be demonstrated, at sq during manual helicopter to ship recovery trials in early 1999. HIGGER II and future developments are intended to support automatic landings for fixed and rotary wing aircraft.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1998) September 15 - 18, 1998 Nashville, TN
Pages:	591 - 600
Cite this article:	Maloney, Mr Andrew, Lumsden, Mr Bruce, McIlroy, Mr Peter, Myers, Mr Graeme, Hunt, Mr Richard, "UK Development of a High Integrity GPS Guidance Enhanced Receiver," Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1998), Nashville, TN, September 1998, pp. 591-600.
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