L-3 Interstate Electronics Corporation IEC) has announced two additional configurations of its miniaturized, hardened GPS TruTrak Evolution receiver and a new configuration of its GPS-based guidance & navigation unit (GNU) Evolution board.
L-3 Interstate Electronics Corporation IEC) has announced two additional configurations of its miniaturized, hardened GPS TruTrak Evolution receiver and a new configuration of its GPS-based guidance & navigation unit (GNU) Evolution board.
The new Evolution receiver configurations include a 1.75 x 2.45–inch, low-power, high-accuracy design and a 3.07 x 0.93–inch design for projectiles. Measuring 2.45 inches square, the new Evolution GNU configuration includes the receiver and a dual frequency MCM (TTE-DM) navigation and user-process development platform.
TruTrak Evolution units are single-board, L1/L2 24-channel secure GPS-based systems that electronically pinpoint exact locations for navigation, guidance and control, and tracking purposes. The new TruTrak Evolution receivers and GNUs are all are available in production quantities.
The new TruTrak Evolution designs offer significantly reduced size and power consumption, according to the company: less than three watts in the highest performance operating mode; less than 700 milliwatts in low-power mode; and 20 milliwatts on standby. Moreover, TruTrak Evolution incorporates integrated processing improvements, which are needed to successfully integrate complete navigation and guidance systems into the small physical space available in today’s reduced size munitions and handheld field systems.
In addition to position, velocity and time (PVT), the TruTrak Evolution GNU provides area navigation. The GPS Wing–approved security design provides a traditional time-to-first-fix of less than six seconds (in the absence of jamming) and generates stabilized measurements even in high-jamming environments.
TruTrak Evolution also employs the latest classified cryptography technology available in IEC’s XFACTOR SAASM module, enhancing GPS security. The XFACTOR is a secure tamper-resistant, multi-chip module that decodes the Department of Defense GPS Precise Positioning Service (PPS) signal. It also supports SAASM extended functions.
According to Interstate Electronics, all TruTrak Evolution systems are designed and tested to survive rugged environmental conditions while maintaining exact performance requirements, such as precision timing within 10 microseconds. The receiver’s mean time between failure is greater than 25,000 hours.