GPS Exploitation for Electronic Combat: A Prosepctus

Douglas S. Abernathy, Neeraj Pujara and Peter G. Howe

Abstract:	The GPS Exploitation for Electronic Combat program was sponsored by the Reference Systems Branch of the System Avionics Division at Wright Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base during 1992-1993. The purpose of the program was to determine improvements in the Electronic Combat technology area that could result from integration with the Global Positioning System. In particular, the program sought to provide specialized mission functions such as hostile threat emitter location and self-protection Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) tactics that did not require special purpose hardware. The study was conducted in four major phases: concept identification, concept development, downselection and follow-on planning, and documentation of the results. Lockheed Ft. Worth Company (LFWC) was the prime contractor and the Tactical Systems Division of Sverdrup Technology, Inc. was the sole subcontractor. The concepts selected for study quickly focused upon multi-platform (primarily two-ship) algorithms, because the incorporation of GPS provides the necessary cross-platform position, velocity, and timing accuracy. Precise knowledge of relative platform separation (known as a brr.releg) and a tightly coupled time reference are useful for threat emitter location and for careful relative positioning as an ECM aid. A Kahnan filter-based Emitter Location algorithm was developed and exercised in a detailed software simulation, incorporating Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) measurements. An algorithm to determine range to a rotating emitter antenna (common to many target acquisition radars) provides an orthogonal measurement to TDOA and may be used to quickly initialize the Kahnan algorithm. Called Range on Scanning Emitters (ROSE), the method has very modest timing and processing requirements, and may be used standalone to locate a target over time. In ECM, knowledge of the location of the threat emitter was combined with accurate ownwhip GPS positions and velocities in a high fidelity missile engagement simulation. Results showed that illumination of radar-reflectivedecoy material (“chaff”) with a GPS-calculated doppler shift could successfully resemble an aircraft at a different location to ground tracking radar. The “cooperative blinking” concept was resurrected through GPS and a data link, in which cooperating aircraft alternate jamming waveforms with greater operational flexibility than before. This paper is called a “prospectus” because it is a survey of technical results and a description of the many opportunities that this program and GPS offer to the Electronic Combat (EC) community.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 6th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1993) September 22 - 24, 1993 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	1409 - 1415
Cite this article:	Abernathy, Douglas S., Pujara, Neeraj, Howe, Peter G., "GPS Exploitation for Electronic Combat: A Prosepctus," Proceedings of the 6th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1993), Salt Lake City, UT, September 1993, pp. 1409-1415.
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