Assessment of Integration Options for GPS Equipped Weapons During Host Vehicle Captive Carriage

James Campanile and Bereket Tanju

Abstract:	Modern aircraft in the U.S. military inventory will have high performance, integrated GPS receivers available for both enroute navigation and for tactical weapons delivery. Fully digital avionics suites will permit dissemination of GPS navigation data and satellite parameters through the mission computer to the aircraft weapon pylons via the MIL-STD-1760 interface. Furthermore, current integrations on aircraft possessing this interface will have the potential to provide GPS RF to the weapon pylon. A new generation of self-guided weapons makes use of embedded GPS/lnertial technology for autonomous guidance to target using coordinates provided in an absolute reference system (e.g. WGS- 84). During captive carriage on a GPS equipped aircraft, the weapon system will have the capability to obtain critical GPS data (position, velocity, precise time, almanac and ephemeris) from the host platform which can significantly impact performance of the embedded system. The purpose of this study is to utilize computer analysis, potential aircraft/GPS avionics configurations and inferences from jamming threat analysis to assess the advantages and disadvantages of three possible weapon/aircraft integration options: 1 - no GPS data provided to the pylon, 2- GPS data provided to the pylon and 3-GPS RF provided to the weapon pylon. Such aspects as speed of signal acquisition, acquisition capability in a jammed environment and accuracy at target will be assessed for the resulting modes of operation of the weapon’s GPS receiver (i.e. normal start, hot start and reacquisition). Recommendations will be made detailing specific GPS data which should be utilized from the host aircraft as well as the cost/benefit of the possible integration options for particular applications.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1993 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 20 - 22, 1993 Parc 55 Hotel San Francisco, CA
Pages:	47 - 54
Cite this article:	Campanile, James, Tanju, Bereket, "Assessment of Integration Options for GPS Equipped Weapons During Host Vehicle Captive Carriage," Proceedings of the 1993 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Francisco, CA, January 1993, pp. 47-54.
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