On October 17, the Defense Innovation Unit posted a solicitation for
solution briefs focused on Dismounted Assured PNT
System (DAPS). The submission period closes on October 27.
The U.S. military’s employment of Global Positioning System
(GPS)-reliant navigation devices creates vulnerabilities due to terrain
limitations, adversary jamming, spoofing, and other denial efforts. Dismounted
ground units require the ability to effectively operate and navigate through a
wide variety of challenging environments, to include dense vegetation, urban,
mountainous, subterranean, underwater, and in the presence of electromagnetic
interference or enemy jamming and spoofing efforts.
The Department of Defense (DoD) seeks novel commercial solutions to
prototype an assured handheld PNT device that allows dismounted units to
operate through a host of physical environments while experiencing a degraded
or denied GPS signal.
This prototype should:
- Be a
handheld solution capable of providing a robust, scalable, and upgradeable
Assured PNT system that can operate in GPS degraded/denied environments.
- Minimize
power consumption for long duration dismounted operations away from
battery resupply or power sources.
- Have
selectable vision modes, to include but not limited to, color mode, black
and white (grayscale) mode, and night vision mode.
- Include
a path to integration into Army’s Nett Warrior System.
- Be
capable of fusing multiple sources of PNT information into a single
solution.
- Add
a stable time device such as a Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC) or an Oven
Controlled Crystal Oscillator (OCXO), which will allow it to maintain
accurate time throughout a 3-day mission regardless of GPS availability.
- Be
Key Management Infrastructure (KMI) aware with the ability to receive a
key over the network (if keying is required).
- Demonstrate
nominal ruggedization to withstand some environmental hazards.
- Demonstrate
path to obtain GPS Directorate certification (if required)
- Include
an initial test quantity of ~25 prototype devices.
- Size
should be equal or less than existing dismounted commercial navigation
receivers or personal electronic device wearables.
The sources of PNT information may include modernized GPS signals
(Selective Availability Anti-spoofing Module [SAASM], M-Code), other Global
Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for integrity checks (BeiDou Navigation
Satellite System, Galileo, GLONASS, Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System
/ Navigation Indian Constellation, and Quasi-Zenith Satellite System), Radio
Frequency (RF)-based systems (Alternative systems, communication systems,
LEO’s), External sources (Anti-jam, other), Internal sources (Inertials and
Clocks), and Sensors (Vision, Celestial, Magnetic, Acoustic, other).
The prototype should be delivered within 12 months of award, ready for integration and testing in operational environments with ground forces.
Full information is available here.
Source: DIU
By 
