Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Stephen Welby, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Department of Defense photoThe Pentagon is executing a technology offset strategy designed to recapture some of the military advantage conveyed by America’s innovation edge.
By Inside GNSS
The Pentagon is poised to decide next month whether to stick with the ongoing accelerated development of military-code (M-code) GPS receiver cards or reset to a slower pace to permit more review and testing.
The new Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) cards are supposed to be one-for-one replacements for the Selective Availability/Anti-Spoofing Modules (SAASM) in military equipment across the services. MGUE satellite navigation receivers would be capable of utilizing the more powerful M-code, a new GPS signal that is not only jam-resistant but more flexible and secure.
By Inside GNSS
Michael Sanjume, deputy chief of the GPS Directorate User Equipment DivisionThe Air Force may dial back plans to accelerate its military receiver program, possibly reversing an earlier decision to combine development and production steps as a way to meet a congressional procurement deadline.
By Inside GNSS
Rockwell Collins DAGR. From Wikimedia CommonsThe GPS Directorate wants industry to more quickly develop innovative user equipment that integrates both the modernized GPS signals and signals from international constellations like Galileo.
“In the future,” said the organization’s new director, Col. Steve Whitney, “it’s going to be important that our industry partners and the Directorate investigate ways to pull in these new signals — and that includes some of the non-GPS signals — into our user equipment.”
By Inside GNSS
With just weeks to go before Congress disperses for a month-long break lawmakers have yet to finalize either a defense funding bill or legislation authorizing military spending for fiscal year 2016. The way forward looks particularly rocky as enacting both bills will require resolving a yearslong fight over spending caps.
By Inside GNSS
Doug Taggart, Overlook Systems Technologies In the “gee-whiz” awesomeness of proliferating GNSS apps, it’s sometimes hard to remember that Global Positioning System originated as a military system designed to meet strategic and tactical needs on the battlefield.
And, with the U.S. Air Force continuing its 40-year mission as the executive agent for sustaining GPS, that undiminished military role plays no small part in ensuring the availability and reliability of the U.S. contribution to the GNSS system of systems.
By Inside GNSS
ARA Nighthawk micro UAVNewly enforced limits on using military airspace to test unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are rattling test range managers across the country and appear to have caused at least one operation to drop its plans for an independent test site for unmanned vehicles.
By Inside GNSS
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) are enforcing limitations on who can use military airspace, a move that will curtail the number of possible places researchers can fly tests with unmanned aircraft.
By Inside GNSS
Dee Ann DivisInside GNSS coverage of the GPS intellectual property dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States has won the magazine’s Washington correspondent, Dee Ann Divis, another journalism award — this one from the Military Reporters & Editors Association.
By Inside GNSS
Spending pressures on the Pentagon seem to be coming from every direction, and the GPS program appears unlikely to avoid them entirely.
The growing needs of veterans are poised to force up health care budgets and higher transportation costs and operating tempos have dug a $22 billion-hole in the accounts for Overseas Contingency Operations in places such as Afghanistan.
By Inside GNSS
The GPS Directorate has approved three contracts to continue the military GPS user equipment (MGUE) development program for portable, ground-based receivers.
By Inside GNSS
Peter Luff, UK Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology (Image from Peter Luff’s MP website)The U.S. visit of a high-level official from the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) is spurring efforts to settle a dispute over a patent that could drive up prices on satellite navigation receivers for users around the world.
By Dee Ann Divis
MBOC signal at top, BOC (1,1) at bottom(Updated May 21) U.S. warfighters could be affected and European navigation users could end up paying more if the British are able to enforce a patent on technology at the heart of the new GPS and Galileo civil signals.
By Inside GNSS
