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The changing face of defense PNT

February 8, 2017  - By

I have mixed emotions as I write this column. Delighted, absolutely, to be given the opportunity to write for GPS World on topics that I am so passionate about; but also sad that we will not see any more articles from Don Jewell, whose excellent columns I followed so religiously over the years. I never had the opportunity to meet Don personally but, to me, he is irreplaceable. But let’s talk about the changing face of defense positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) — not in the editorial sense, but in the technology sense.

As we all know, PNT and GPS are no longer synonymous. With a host of innovative technologies on the horizon, PNT is about so much more than GPS these days, and the military knows it. Sure, GPS has been the workhorse of PNT for many years, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. I’ll be clear on that: GPS is not going anywhere. But it’s not a complete solution either.

Let me paraphrase what a friend in the infantry tells me, by saying GPS is a 60 percent solution to their navigation needs. What does that mean? Well, it goes something like this:

  • 60 percent of the time: GPS is great, it does what we need.
  • 20 percent of the time: We are indoors or underground, and GPS is simply not available.
  • 15 percent of the time: We’re in an urban canyon. GPS availability is intermittent, and the accuracy is poor.
  • 4 percent of the time: We’re in forests or dense vegetation, and GPS is sporadic.
  • 1 percent of the time: GPS is jammed.

You can argue the numbers depending on the mission, but you get the idea. What, then, is the answer for the soldier? Well, first things first: We don’t want to reinvent the good 60 percent so, once again, GPS is here to stay. The question is how do we push past that 60 percent figure and get ourselves closer to 100 percent? Let’s go from the bottom up, and address GPS jamming.

Overcoming interference

The classic solution to jamming is an adaptive antenna, also known as a controlled radiation pattern antenna (CRPA). More on this another time but, for now, suffice it to say that CRPAs are a well-understood and mature technology, and can offer very high levels of jamming resistance.

The often-cited disadvantage of a CRPA antenna is its size, weight and power: As CRPAs employ multiple antenna elements, they are inherently larger and heavier. The electronics can pretty much be covered by a single chip these days, leaving the antennas themselves as the problematic aspect, but advances in antenna technology have also made big hurdles.

For airborne platforms, conformal antennas designed as part of the structure or fuselage can be used; whilst for the dismounted soldier, the trend is towards wearables, where the antennas may be an inherent part of the clothing or helmet design.

Aside from adaptive antennas there are a whole host of other techniques in your anti-jam kit bag, including receiver-based techniques.

It’s a numbers game

For forests and urban canyons, this is where multi-frequency multi-GNSS comes into its own. It really is a numbers game: The more constellations you use, the more satellites you can choose from, and the greater your chances of seeing enough satellites to derive a reasonable navigation solution. You also have more options for mitigating the effects of multipath and other errors.

Of course, this gives rise to a potentially difficult question for some governments: In defense applications, do you want to rely on foreign GNSS constellations as part of your PNT solution? The attitude here depends on your own country’s policy and a trade-off of perceived gains against perceived threats. The UK, for example, has chosen to embrace all available constellations and frequencies in future military navigation systems.

That’s probably about as far as GNSS gets you, because now we’re looking at the 20 percent of the time where the user is indoors or underground. In other words, environments where GNSS simply isn’t available. This 20 percent is perhaps more tricky to address, and is the realm of alternative and complementary PNT technologies.

Beyond GNSS

Fusing different sensor modalities to create a combined navigation solution is anything but a new idea. The benefits of combining GPS with an inertial sensor were recognized a long time ago, and this classic pairing continues to be the subject of research today.

The two technologies are highly complementary in various ways: GNSS offers absolute position, low short-term accuracy, and high long-term accuracy. On the other hand, an inertial sensor offers the opposite: relative position, high short-term accuracy, and low long-term accuracy. It’s a match made in heaven.

But whilst GNSS plus inertial may be a good choice for, say, airborne platforms, it doesn’t solve the in-building and underground problem. Without GNSS, you need something else.

Indoor navigation has been one of the hottest research topics of recent times, but there are really two types of indoor scenario: the first is when you’re in a shopping mall or airport. You can use an inertial sensor, Wi-Fi, mobile base stations, and various other bits of infrastructure to help you navigate.

The second scenario is the military one: You’re in an unfamiliar enemy compound or underground tunnel complex. In this case, there is no GNSS, no Wi-Fi, no mobile communications; and, for navigation, you can only really rely on the sensors you bring with you.

So what other sensor works underground, and complements inertial?

Visual/inertial integration

Visual odometry is an established, yet often overlooked, navigation technology that is undergoing a resurgence of interest, in both military and civilian applications. In simple terms, visual odometry uses sequential camera images to determine motion in a six degrees of freedom reference frame. Using either single or multiple cameras a platform can estimate both its 3D position and orientation, providing much the same information as an inertial sensor — but with a few added benefits.

Visual/inertial sensing allows 3D reconstruction of a road incident (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBw-DH2p5uo&t=2s)

Visual/inertial sensing allows 3D reconstruction of a road incident. (Screenshot: Roke)

Because cameras and associated vision-processing algorithms are capable of detecting corners and features, a 3D model of the environment in which the soldier is operating can also be built up. In other words, we can perform simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).

But like any navigation technology, visual odometry has its limitations. It likes well-defined features in the environment, such as corners, but can get confused by moving objects like trees and clouds. Its performance also depends on factors such as the quality of the camera and lens, and how well the system is calibrated. Like an inertial sensor, it provides a relative positioning solution and is subject to accumulation of errors over time. It’s a great technique, but it really comes into its own when combined with another navigation sensor, such as an inertial unit.

And it’s not just the military guys who are taking advantage of visual/inertial integration. Just take a look at Google’s Tango project, or what Qualcomm is doing, or Roke’s black box for driverless cars, to name but a few examples.

Bringing it all together

Over the course of the last decade or two, the operational landscape for soldiers has changed significantly, with far greater focus on urban warfare. The military realized some years ago that the answer to robust navigation for dismounted soldiers was going to require a range of sensor modalities: no single navigation technology is ideal in all environments. That’s why this has been the focus of so many defense programs of recent years.

By way of example, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) initiated a research program in 2013 called Dismounted Close Combat Sensors (DCCS). The contract addressed a range of soldier capabilities, one of which was the ability to provide reliable soldier position and orientation in all environments.

The DCCS programme evaluated a whole bunch of technologies, but eventually converged to an integration of three primary sensors: multi-constellation GNSS, a low-cost inertial measurement unit (IMU) and a video camera. The single monocular video camera was used to strap down the IMU, in a very tightly-coupled system. It makes sense: when GNSS is available, use it. When GNSS isn’t available, the integrated visual/inertial navigation sensor continues to provide both location and orientation for the duration of the mission. As it should be for a tightly integrated navigation system, the performance of the combined system outperforms any individual sensor in isolation.

Whilst integrated sensor systems enable our soldiers to position, orientate and navigate themselves, the performance of individual sensors continues to be pushed to new limits. Inertial technology is advancing all the time, and defense is again pushing the boundaries. Take a look at what DARPA is up to, as an example.

The missing ‘T’

Haven’t we missed something? Ah yes, there’s a “T” in PNT. So whilst there would seem to be various options for achieving a robust positioning and navigation solution, we mustn’t forget precise timing for those applications that need it. Quantum technology is flavor of the month here and, once more, the defense agencies are furthering developments: DARPA with its ACES program, and MOD/DSTL via the Quantum Technology Program, to illustrate just a couple of examples.

So whilst GPS will continue to remain the workhorse, defense PNT is migrating from GPS-only to being a many-faced beast. And I haven’t even gotten started on pseudolites, signals of opportunity, eLoran, and cooperative navigation.

The future of defense PNT looks pretty good to me.

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About the Author: Michael Jones

Michael leads the Array Processing group at Roke Manor Research, where he also heads up Robust PNT technologies. His background encompasses military sensing, navigation and electronic warfare, and he has particular specialist interest in GNSS adaptive antenna systems and direction-finding technology. He gained a First-Class Master’s degree in electronic engineering with avionics from the University of York in 1999, and was awarded the Racal prize for best avionics degree.   Since joining Roke Manor Research he has worked on a multitude of advanced navigation systems for the military.  He has detailed technical knowledge of adaptive antenna GPS systems, and was jointly responsible for the development of a number of world-leading navigation protection systems utilizing interference cancellation, adaptive beamforming and direction finding. His work is in service on a variety of MoD and DoD airborne platforms around the world. He played a pivotal technical role in the ADAP programme for the U.S. military.   He specializes in the simulation, modelling and hardware implementation of advanced signal-processing algorithms, and has led a number of designs for military GNSS and navigation systems. While remaining primarily technical, he also undertakes product management, project management and business development activities.   Michael is well-known for his work, and in 2015 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation in recognition of his significant and sustained contribution to the field of navigation warfare. He has published a number of papers on GNSS interference countermeasures. His current work includes robust GNSS receiver design and true anti-spoof technology.   Aside from robust GNSS receivers and adaptive antennas, Michael leads a portfolio of other advanced military navigation technologies, including visual odometry for dismounted soldiers, inertial navigation, signals-of-opportunity, eLoran and integrated navigation systems.   He is a former vice-chair of the IET’s navigation executive committee and co-chair at the International Navigation Conference. Contact him at mjones@gpsworld.com.