Field test results prove GPS performance and utility

Statistical and operational results of extensive government field-testing of the Rockwell-Collins Global Positioning System (GPS) units are summarized. The equipment has exhibited better than 16-m spherical-error probable-position accuracy in over 6300 hours of testing conducted during the past two years. One-channel, two-channel, and five-channel receivers were subjected to thorough evaluation. Their respective signal-processing and data-processing architectures are described. Data highlighting dynamic position accuracy, static position accuracy, acquisition times, and field reliability are presented. GPS equipment integration and operation with nine different host vehicles is described. The results of mission scenarios, such as area navigation, rendezvous, and weapon delivery, are presented     

云作战条件下空天信息装备体系建设

云作战是云计算技术在军事领域带来的全新作战模式。在未来空天成体系对抗中,云作战将具有作 战力量聚散无形和作战行动虚实结合的优势。本文分析了空天信息装备体系的建设需求,基于云作战概念,构建了空天信息装备体系;从重视云作战制胜机理研究、提升装备融合能力、重视可靠性和安全性、坚持统筹协调 等角度,探讨了云作战概念对空天信息装备体系建设的启示,深化了空天信息装备体系建设需求与实现途径的 认识,对空天战场信息装备成体系建设与运用具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Sole means navigation in US Navy aircraft

The current edition of the US Federal Radionavigation Plan, issued in 1984, presents a consolidated federal plane on the management of those radionavigation systems which are used by both the civilian and military sectors. It states the US Dept. of Defense (DoD) goal to phase out the use of TACAN, VOR/DME, OMEGA, LORAN C, and TRANSIT in military platforms and for Global Positioning System (GPS) to become the standard radionavigation system for DoD. This would eliminate all the current sole-means air navigation systems (TACAN and VOR/DME) aboard military aircraft. Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) operations within controlled airspace requires an operating sole-means air navigation system to be aboard the aircraft. The authors investigate the requirements for GPS certification as a sole means air navigation system in the US National Airspace System (NAS); discuss the implication for GPS user equipment (UE) hardware and software; describe the actual UE implementation; and discuss approaches for UE integration with flight instruments on US Navy aircraft     

Aerospace High Voltage Development

High voltage has been used for electrical power system generation, transmission, and distribution for over 75 years and manufacturers have been designing x-rays, radios/television transmitters and receivers for many years with excellent success. High voltage usage in aerospace equipment initiated during World War II with the advent of high power communications and radar for airplanes. About 20 years ago the first high voltage components were built for spacecraft systems. This article is to provide some insight into the status of high voltage for aerospace equipment and the differences between terrestial and aerospace system functions and the attendant problems. What are the basic differences between terrestial/commercial and aerospace equipment? The aerospace environment is defined as that significantly above the Earth's surface: From 5000 feet altitude to deep space. The basic differences are the constraints placed on the user vehicle (airplane, missile, or spacecraft). Constraints include: Atmospheric pressure, temperature, lifting capability, electronic requirements, and volume. Early airplanes needed only radios and mechanical pressurization instruments. Today's sophisticted airplanes require transmitters, receivers, controls, displays, and in the military case, special electronics. The addition of electronic devices has increased the electrical power demand from a few watts (for early aircraft) to well over one megawatt for special applications. There is the need for compact packaging to reduce weight and volume. Spacecraft with booster limitations are ever more restrictive of weight and volume then airplanes while they must maintain complete electrical system integrity for mission durations of several months to years.     

Independent Ground Monitor Coverage of GPS Satellites

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to independently monitor signals in space from the Global Positioning System (GPS) for the purpose of providing immediate awareness to civil aviation users of the operational status of GPS when it is used in the National Airspace System. The operational status will be disseminated to Air Traffic Control and will possibly be broadcast from ground monitoring stations to GPS aviation users via a dedicated integrity channel. An algorithm is described that measures the coverage of a configuration of ground monitoring station locations, and is applied to several different configurations of ground monitoring stations to compare the coverage provided. Also included are the resulting ground monitoring station configurations that give the best coverage of GPS signals for several specific geographical areas, the conterminous United States (CONUS), Canada, and Alaska.     

Navigation and landing [A century of powered flight 1903-2003]

Navigation and landing for the first half century of aviation fundamentally relied on radio-based electronic aids. The military began serious investigation of radio navigation during World War I. Up until WW II map reading, dead reckoning, and various means of radio direction finding were the primary methods of determining aircraft position. Since WWII a number of other navigation techniques, such as Doppler radar, radio inertial, pure inertial, aided inertial, and today's integrated GPS inertial, have been developed. Most of the inertial systems evolved from the military ICBM and subsequent space programs.     

Preliminary Evaluation of GPS Performance for Low-Cost General Aviation

Preliminary results of a simulation effort to evaluate the requirements and feasibility of the global positioning system (GPS) as a civil air navigation system are presented. Evaluation is made of GPS requirements, from operational considerations, such as application to nonprecision approaches. The conceptual low-cost GPS receiver simulated here does not correct for the ionospheric or trophospheric delay, is sequential in nature, tracks only four satellites, and is not mechanized to make independent range rate measurements based on the Doppler shift of the GPS carrier frequency. The proposed GPS system has significantly different performance characteristics from the presently used VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) solidus distance-measuring equipment (DME) system. The GPS is a low signal level system and many have a relatively slow data rate due to the low-cost sequential receiver design. The results indicate that although the conceptual low-cost GPS receiver/ navigator is potentially more accurate than a VOR, the accuracy may degrade during aircraft turns and satellite shielding periods.     

面向军事应用的航空人工智能技术架构研究

通过全面梳理国内外面向军事应用的航空装备智能化发展现状,紧密围绕未来智能化空中作战的任务场景,给出航空军用人工智能技术的概念和内涵,并依据智能系统信息运行模型,提出不同运行层级的航空装备智能升级的途径和方法。在此基础上,形成包含基础使能、关键技术群、智能系统、运行层级的航空人工智能技术架构,对关键技术群按面向运行层级、面向功能需求、面向基础使能进行分析,得到重点技术发展方向,并给出提升我国航空装备智能化水平的具体措施建议,为制定相关航空人工智能技术规划提供参考。     

Civil Access to NAVSTAR GPS

US government policy is established and procedures are being formulated to direct the implementation of techniques providing limited civil access to full GPS accuracy. The results of these efforts balance the conflicting needs of civil GPS navigation and positioning against national security requirements. Granting this access will require sufficient and demonstrable user need, must clearly provide for both national and security interests, and may lead to the imposition of a user service charge. This access will only apply to Precise Positioning Service configured, code-tracking GPS receivers.     

逻辑靶场理论与应用研究

在分析世界军事发达国家武器装备试验靶场发展趋势的基础上,根据新武器装备试验和作战训练转型发展需要,针对我国武器装备试验训练现状提出了建立＂逻辑靶场＂的思想。结合我国武器装备试验和作战训练资源实际,重点对逻辑靶场的作用意义、任务需求、基本概念、体系结构、整体构建、资源重组、运行机制及实际应用等方面全面系统地进行了研究,旨在为我国建立逻辑靶场提供理论参考。     

装备基本作战单元任务持续性度量参数研究

装备基本作战单元的任务持续能力是构成装备系统作战能力的要素,与装备系统的可靠性、维修性、保障性指标密切相关。为度量基本作战单元的任务持续能力,从系统工程思想出发,建立了装备基本作战单元的典型任务模型,据此对装备基本作战单元的任务持续性要求进行了分析,提出了装备基本作战单元的任务持续性参数,并对其选取原则和确定依据进行了研究,最后给出了使用试验过程中某型飞机基本作战单元任务持续性参数分析的示例。可以为装备研制、使用部门评估装备基本作战单元的任务持续能力,权衡装备可靠性、维修性、保障性与保障系统设计方案,进行装备使用试验提供理论支持。     

Application of GPS to space vehicles: analysis of space environmentand errors

GPS based systems become extremely competitive for space applications because of their all-weather capabilities and continual information on position, velocity, precise time and even attitude to increase mission effectiveness, reduce mission cost, minimize requirements of on-board devices. In this paper, space application environment and error sources have been systematically analyzed, including geometric location of user with GPS satellites, dynamic state, physical environment and the effects on positioning accuracy. Several special differential GPS technologies to space use are proposed     

GPS/INS integration on the Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM)

The Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) is a worldwide, all-weather, precision-strike weapon system deployed from carrier-based aircraft. In the primary mode of operation, target location and other mission data are generated from intelligence sources available on the aircraft carrier and loaded into the missile prior to aircraft takeoff. After missile launch, the SLAM inertial navigation system (INS) guides the missile along the planned trajectory. Updating the missile INS from the Global Positioning System (GPS) during flight provides precise midcourse navigation and enhances target acquisition by accurate, on-target pointing of the SLAM Maverick seeker. The GPS/INS avionics and software integration used for SLAM are described in detail, along with some of the design tradeoffs that led to the approach. The avionics configuration integrates the Harpoon midcourse guidance unit, which includes a strapdown inertial sensor package and digital processor, with a Rockwell-Collins single-channel, sequential GPS receiver processor unit (RPU), a derivative of the GPS phase-III user equipment. In addition to the GPS receiver elements the RPU contains the navigation processor, which executes the SLAM navigation, Kalman filter algorithms, and other guidance algorithms including seeker pointing. Flight-test results of the SLAM GPS-aided INS are also included     

History of Time-Frequency Technology

Present-day collision avoidance systems (CAS) of the time-frequency variety employ modes of operation similar to those of airborne equipment which has been operating in military aircraft since 1959. A fleet operational evaluation of these systems began in 1961 in aircraft of U. S. Navy Helicopter Squadron HS-4, based on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown. This equipment utilized a local clock in each aircraft, a separate time slot for each aircraft's interrogation signal, air-to-air coarse synchronization of all stations, and sufficient free-drift stability for time slot keeping. Operational use of one-way ranging with elimination of propagation delay offsets, higher clock stability for open-loop time keeping in the SNS-64 ... AN/APN-169 family of systems began in 1964 in U. S. Air Force C-130E turboprop aircraft. In 1965, use of the EROS I collision avoidance system began during flight testing of F-4 Phantom supersonic aircraft.     

Design and integration of a solar AMTEC power system with anadvanced global positioning satellite

A 1,200-W solar AMTEC (alkali metal thermal-to-electric conversion) power system concept was developed and integrated with an advanced global positioning system (GPS) satellite. The critical integration issues for the SAMTEC with the GPS subsystems included: (1) packaging within the Delta II launch vehicle envelope; (2) deployment and start-up operations for the SAMTEC; (3) SAMTEC operation during all mission phases; (4) satellite field of view restrictions with satellite operations; and (5) effect of the SAMTEC requirements on other satellite subsystems. The SAMTEC power system was compared with a conventional planar solar array/battery power system to assess the differences in system weight, size, and operations, Features of the design include the use of an advanced multitube, vapor anode AMTEC cell design with 24% conversion efficiency, and a direct solar insolation receiver design with integral LiF salt canisters for energy storage to generate power during the maximum solar eclipse cycle, The modular generator design consists of an array of multitube AMTEC cells arranged into a parallel/series electrical network with built-in cell redundancy. Our preliminary assessment indicates that the solar generator design is scaleable over a 500 to 2,500-W range. No battery power is required during the operational phase of the GPS mission. SAMTEC specific power levels greater than 5 We/kg and 160 We/m² are anticipated for a mission duration of 10 to 12 years in orbits with high natural radiation backgrounds     

Latest Trends in Radar System Testing

Radar systems were initially limited to military applications, but today most people encounter radar applications everyday. Given the broad range of applications, a variety of radar types and technologies have emerged to meet unique needs. This paper discusses about the latest advances on system performance and testing of radar systems. When performing characterization of a radar receiver design, a variety of signals are required to accurately recreate the operational environment. This paper will review the test signal environment needed for evaluation of various modern radar systems. Performance considerations in terms of signal source fidelity and spectral purity will also be investigated.     

GPS III system operations concepts

Over the past three years, the Lockheed Martin GPS III team has analyzed potential operational concepts for the Air Force. The completed tasks support the government's objective of a "realizable and operationally feasible" US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) and Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) concept of operations. This paper provides an overview of the operational improvements for the command and control of satellites, the provision of safe, precise navigation and timing services to end-users. The GPS III system changes existing operational paradigms. Improved operator capabilities are enabled by a new high-speed uplink/downlink and crosslink communication architecture. Continuous connectivity allows operators a "contact one satellite - contact all satellites" concept enabling near-real-time navigation updates and telemetry monitoring. This paper describes potential improvements for the following operations: constellation monitoring, command and control, navigation upload monitoring, global service monitoring, global service prediction, civilian navigation (CNAV) messaging, and anomaly detection and resolution. This paper also describes future operational improvements as GPS applications continue to proliferate and the need for an improved infrastructure to effectively manage all the systems that affect GPS service grows     

DQI-NP application to the OutriderTM Tactical UnmannedAerial Vehicle (TUAV)

A wide variety of applications can benefit from integrated Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) technology. However, in many situations, the end user has a preference for a specific GPS receiver. Additionally, in most cases, the user does not desire to expend the time and money necessary to perform a custom INS/GPS integration, but instead wants a low-cost off-the-shelf solution. To address these applications, Boeing has developed the Digital Quartz Inertial Measurement Unit (DQI IMU)-Navigation Processor (DQI-NP) product as an extension of its Miniature Integrated GPS/INS Tactical System (MIGITS^TM) family of integrated INS/GPS products. This paper describes the DQI-NP and its application to the Outrider^TM Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV). The DQI-NP, as currently integrated into the Outrider^TM TUAV, is coupled with a custom Trimble GPS receiver combined with major embedded firmware modifications by IntegriNautics. In conjunction with differential GPS and ground based pseudolites, the overall system is intended to provide autonomous landing capability to the Outrider TUAV. DQI-NP provides an available, low-cost, commercial-off-the-shelf/non-development item (COTS/NDI) solution to a variety of commercial and military applications, of which the Outrider ^TM TUAV is an excellent example     

Flight Operations in the New Millennium

New approaches are being studied for real-time interaction, and related supporting processes, with spacecraft and instruments in deep space. Spacecraft are evolving, improving in many ways, and generally becoming more robust. Operations is changing also, and will be more automated in the future. However, there is a challenge. Deep space missions are not all alike. The operations phases of discovery and exploration are an extension of the research that creates the mission; they are the time of obtaining results. This examines the historical role of flight operations and its evolving processes to develop an understanding of the operational methods that will be effective in the future. It takes people, equipment, software, space, and connectivity for operations success. A balance has to be struck between improving technology, gaining knowledge, automation, and realistic expectations. Finally, the recommended methods to gain efficiency in operations are system-wide services and shared resources. These common processes will meet the challenge of varied missions.     

装备保障建模仿真研究

为了评价作战单元的战备完好性、持续作战能力和保障能力,根据系统工程的建模仿真思想提出了装备保障建模研究的仿真概念模型,并以军用飞机为例对装备保障仿真试验进行了分析,包括任务、功能、维修过程和资源利用建模过程等。