Under this contract, CACI will provide 24/7 operations support, joint and operational planning, adversary positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) capability assessments and other tasks to enhance joint force, DOD combatant commander, interagency and allied NAVWAR requirements.

“Adversary PNT capabilities rapidly evolve, putting our warfighters and national security operations at risk around the world,” said John Mengucci, CACI president and CEO. “CACI’s experts comprehensively understand multi-domain PNT threats and advise combatant and joint force commanders on how to swiftly respond to NAVWAR threats and operational requirements.”

PNT is critical to U.S. national security and NAVWAR. This includes deliberate defensive and offensive actions to ensure and prevent PNT use through space, cyber and electronic warfare. The contract represents new work for CACI, with mission experts supporting global NAVWAR reach-back operations via the Joint NAVWAR Operations Center (JNOC). These experts will assist combatant commanders in operating in PNT-disrupted, denied and degraded areas by conducting operational field assessments, war gaming scenarios, modeling and simulating threats and more.

<p>The post CACI provides PNT support to US Space Command first appeared on GPS World.</p>

K1000ULE in flight. (Photo: Kraus Hamdani Aerospace)

There was a lot of press noise in December 2023 about DOD’s Replicator program– which has been interpreted as a project to field thousands of U.S. UAVs to counter a perceived weakness in the face of China’s options for waging UAV war. Then there was a move by the Replicator program office to better explain its approach. It was reported as having at least four concurrent elements:

1. Encourage U.S. industry to conceive and implement ways to overcome the new aspects of conducting war and possibly use more UAVs more often.
2. Let China know that the United States is already on the move to not only keep up with but exceed Chinese capabilities.
3. Overhaul the extremely burdensome and slow existing DOD procurement machine to make large, rapid acquisitions.
4. Invigorate DOD military services to quickly adapt to find ways to use UAVs in multiple offensive and defensive roles.

Presumably, lessons learned in Ukraine — where both sides have been throwing both improvised and specially designed explosive drones at each other — and U.S. Red Sea encounters with Houthi rebels — have helped to frame some of Replicator’s objectives.

Anyone who has labored through a DOD request for proposal (RFP), RFP response, competitive re-bid and maybe even more competitive re-rebid that potentially led to months of questions and waiting leading to an ultimate reward or disappointment can imagine what hoops the procuring agency had to jump through. They can also imagine the time that elapsed from the definition of a requirement to a written firm procurement specification, and approval of a procurement package.

Never mind the allocation of procurement staff, establishing a budget and then processing of possibly multiple responses – this is a complex, arduous and time-consuming task for both industry and the procurement agencies. With help from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), it is anticipated that acquiring and fielding thousands of commercially available autonomous drones will now go quicker.

Imagine the inertia needed to change the way that military services use the materiel they’ve acquired and how difficult it might be to change what is bought and how it is used at the very front end of a war effort. When the opposition chucks many, small, inexpensive, airborne bombs at you and you do not have an immediate answer other than a limited number of multi-million-dollar interceptor missiles, it can be very painful. Matching drones with drones is essential.

Replicator was initially envisaged as a $1 billion program over two years to counter this and other problems for the warfighter.

On March 23, Congress finally passed the FY 24 $825 billion defense spending bill — almost six months late — which contained $200 million for Replicator, and DOD began to scramble to find an additional $300 million for the program’s first year. It should work out as there is money currently unspent from the FY23 budget that DOD has already requested Congress to re-allocate, and there is only a little more than six months left for this fiscal year anyway.

It is rumored that AeroVironment, with its Switchblade 600 semi-autonomous, one-way Kamikaze UAV, may benefit from an early Replicator procurement. With an anti-armor charge, Switchblade weighs about 50 lb and can fly for 24 miles and up to 40 minutes before engaging its target, allowing adequate time for manual intervention.

The U.S. Navy has selected a solar-powered UAV from a California start-up because it is the best demonstrated commercially available option for their Marine Corps scouting group.

The K1000ULE from KHAero in Emeryville, California is a long-range reconnaissance UAV.

With 24-hour flight endurance, extremely quiet and virtually radar-undetectable, the UAV provides the Marines with a suitable scouting tool – almost a launch-and-forget facility for day and night, most weather recon activities. It is also a relatively low workload for a team of only three to five personnel to transport and operate.

With vertical take-off and landing capabilities, the K1000ULE is ideal for covert autonomous operations from unprepared areas that a small squad might secure. The mission equipage includes full-motion video with target identification and classification and a secure communications systems.

With anti-jam, anti-spoofing multi-constellation GNSS, the vehicle can operate reliably in most signal-denied areas. It finds and automatically uses thermal columns to soar up to 20,000 ft and loiter undetected. It is capable of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight, can carry ADS-B for airborne collision avoidance and can be operated in swarms by a single operator when required – quite some UAV!

The Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie Wingman UAV was developed to work with and on-behalf of high-end airborne assets, such as the F-22 and F-35, and is termed an ‘attributable’ adjunct to these ~$90 million fighter/ground-attack aircraft. Autonomous, driven by AI, and stealthy, the jet-powered UAV carries General Aviation electronics, along with other military communications. It is said to cost in the $5 to 10 million range — which makes it somewhat disposable if it is sent into a “tight or risky” location from which its fighter escort should hold back.

With a 3,000 miles range, 45,000 ft ceiling and carrying capacity of up to 1,800 lb of under-wing armaments, the aircraft can be controlled from an accompanying aircraft as a “Loyal Wingman,” or from the ground and be dispatched to carry out an autonomous, independent mission, requiring approval by a person to release weapons.

The XQ-58A was recently flown with two U.S. Marine Corps F-35 fighter jets at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida to demonstrate the capability for electronic attack and to fly alongside these fifth-generation high-end aircraft. The UAV autonomously detected, classified, and positioned multiple simulated targets during the exercise and provided target-tracking information to the F-35s.

The “Loyal Wingman” concept is still being developed and there are other companies, including Boeing Australia, flying competing prototype UAVs.

So, a more mil-spec tone to this month’s UAV updates, nevertheless a short recap of recent interesting unmanned, autonomous aircraft developments.

<p>The post Unmanned news first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: AUVSI XPONENTIAL

AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2024 will be held April 22 to 25  at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.

The event’s key themes include infrastructure and operations, technical research and development, data and analytics, cybersecurity and policy and regulations. The conference will feature keynotes, educational sessions, specialized workshops, and an XPO Hall with more than 30 exhibit categories with technologies across air, land and maritime sectors.

XPONENTIAL attracts more than 7,500 attendees each year, who attend more than 200 educational sessions as part of the full conference. The current keynote sessions include innovators with diverse perspectives and backgrounds who will speak on pressing topics and address key questions affecting the autonomous community.

Confirmed speakers include:

Doug Beck
Director, Defense Innovation Unit

Operationalizing DIU 3.0
Responsible for accelerating the Department of Defense (DoD) adoption of commercial technology through the military, Beck will discuss how defense agencies and industry can collaborate to strengthen national security. This session will be moderated by Courtney Albon, emerging technology reporter for Defense News and C4ISRNET.

Michael Brasseur
Chief Strategy Officer, Saab Inc.

To Create, To Make, To Shape
Drawing upon his role in implementing Saab’s future capabilities strategy, Brasseur’s presentation will address how individuals and organizations can foster an environment of continuous improvement and advancement.

Hal Brands, Ph.D.
Henry A. Kissinger, professor of global affairs, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Advancing Technologies and Their Role in World Affairs
Using his knowledge in foreign policy, international relations and security strategy, Brands will help leaders conceptualize strategies to safeguard national interests and organizations to navigate geopolitical challenges.

Henrik I. Christensen, Ph.D.
Qualcomm chair of robotics and professor, computer science, director of contextual robotics institute, UC San Diego

Looking Ahead: Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
Henrik will explore the future of these technologies and how stakeholders can form strategies that capitalize on emerging opportunities.

Harry Yeff (aka Reeps One)
AI Artist and AI for Good Activist

Undoing a Narrative of Fear
Yeff, a London-born, neurodivergent artist, will share how we can foster a constructive dialogue on responsibly integrating technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy. His performance art pieces, integrated with AI and voice technology, have been exhibited internationally and garnered more than 100 million online views worldwide.

Additionally, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Panel titled “Getting to Go,” will cover safety standards, implementation challenges and obstacles to technology development and testing. Panelists include three representatives from the FAA: Timothy Arel, chief operating officer of the air traffic organization, Marc Nichols, chief counsel and Laurence Wildgoose, assistant administrator for policy, international affairs and environment.

Matt McCardle, head of global regulatory affairs and strategy at Amazon Prime Air will moderate the discussion.

GPS World staff will be attending the conference. To follow our live coverage, click here.

More speakers will be announced in the coming weeks. Click here to learn more and register.

<p>The post XPONENTIAL 2024 is quickly approaching first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Ligado’s $40 billion suit alleged that officials at the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) took “unlawful actions” to, in effect, improperly seize the firm’s L-band spectrum without compensation. Ligado was granted to build a 5G communications network by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2020.

Ligado plans to use the L-band spectrum — normally used by satellites — to develop a wireless cell phone network. However, the DoD, and several other federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation (DOT), have expressed concerns that Ligado’s terrestrial operations could have harmful effects on GPS.

According to Ligado, as long as the DOD continues to use the spectrum, Ligado will be unable to use it to launch its terrestrial communications services.

The DOJ’s motion asserts that rather than the U.S. Federal Claims Court, the issue instead falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Act, which “established a comprehensive remedial scheme” for FCC licensing decisions.

Secondly, the motion says Ligado’s complaint “fails to allege any authorized government actions that could give rise to takings liability, and instead, it contends that the government has been engaged in an unlawful effort to preclude Ligado from using its FCC license. These contentions necessarily preclude any takings liability.”

The motion goes on to contest each of the Ligado suit’s four specific legal claims. The DOJ alleges, “Ligado fails to plead any plausible facts to support its purely speculative claim that the government has occupied its licensed spectrum. And its theory that the government required a spectrum ‘dead zone’ around the separate spectrum bands allocated for GPS use similarly fails because Ligado cannot identify any authorized government action that precluded it from actually using its modified license.”

In response to the motion, Ligado provided a statement to Breaking Defense, reiterating its complaint that government officials deliberately deprived Ligado of its rightfully licensed property and must be held accountable.

“This attack on an American business by the world’s most powerful institution is contrary to the rule of law and antithetical to the government’s years-long support for the deployment of 5G technology as a vital national priority,” the statement said. “We worked diligently and in good faith with government agencies to find a fair resolution but were left with no choice but to pursue litigation to defend our interests. We continue to stand firmly behind our complaint and will reply to the government’s motion in the appropriate forum.”

<p>The post US DOJ moves to dismiss Ligado lawsuit first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: iLexx/ iStock / Getty Images Plus/ Getty Images

New GPS ground stations that are contracted by Raytheon Technologies to replace the current ground stations have been delayed until July 2025, the Pentagon’s testing office reported.

The Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) is facing a new delay of 16 months, according to the 2023 Annual Report of the Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E).

More than seven years behind schedule, the continuous delays have caused the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to go over its yearly budget and have sparked discussions as to future budget allocations for the U.S. Space Force (USSF) to continue to control and enhance the GPS constellation.

“These delays increase the risk that U.S. and allied warfighters will be unable to conduct successful operations in future contested environments due to the lack of access to modernized GPS position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information,” the Pentagon’s testing office said in a statement.

The M-Code can now be broadcast on 21 of the 31 GPS satellites in orbit. However, it is only available to a small number of military personnel due to both the OCX issue and a lack of radios and receivers equipped to access it.

The Space Force has a Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) program underway to develop new computer chip-carrying cards to retrofit existing platforms, such as aircraft and ships, so they can ingest M-code signals, as well as to develop a new handheld receiver. This effort has also experienced delays, according to a June 2023 report by the Government Accountability Office.

The 2024 DOT&E report notes that because of the delays in the development of the MGUE receiver cards, the Army and Marine Corps are now buying commercially developed receivers capable of ingesting the M-Code for fielding with ground vehicles.

Additionally, the DOT&E report cautions that because the OCX software is designed to be the basis for an upgraded system, OCX Block 3F, designed to control the planned next generation of GPS satellites called GPS IIIF, that effort also is likely to be delayed. The Space Force intends to launch the first GPS IIIF satellite in 2027.

<p>The post GPS OCX delays continue first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: enot-poloskun / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images

The Department of Defense (DOD) shoulders an enormous responsibility, perhaps one whose significance the world does not fully grasp: the sheer number of military, civil and commercial users, each with hundreds of unique use cases, that depend on the Global Positioning System (GPS).

No other DOD-operated system serves such a diverse array of users and interests. From Special Operators to ship and tank drivers, pilots and operators, the military user base is expansive. Civil users include first responders, general aviators, and those supporting the international flying public, whose numbers are again setting records. Additionally, countless average people like you and me just “use it” in our daily lives without considering how it works. The ever-expanding commercial market consists of $1.7 trillion in 2023 dollars in economic benefits accruing to the U.S. economy alone, millions of jobs, and fierce global competition to produce the “best of the best” of the 6.5 billion user receivers in operation today.

With these users and interests in mind, what does that mean for GPS’ future? It raises more questions than answers — about policy, governance, program execution and threats that urgently need to be addressed:

• What indicators will determine whether the United States has met its policy goal to be the global leader in “service provision and the responsible use of global satellite navigation systems, including GPS and foreign systems?”
• Building on this publication’s previous articles, what constitutes a “Gold Standard” in 2024? Which users determine this definition? How and when do foreign global navigation satellite systems’ capabilities factor into this definition?
• What funding levels ensure the security, accuracy, availability and resilience of GPS? In Fiscal Year 2022, Congress provided more than $2 billion for DOD to procure and conduct research and development on GPS III and IIIF satellites, procure military user equipment, and upgrade the ground architecture. In 2022, the Department of Transportation received $22 million for GPS resiliency and $92 million for the Wide Area Augmentation System. Is this level of funding sufficient to bring innovative technologies to GPS?
• Speaking of innovation, U.S. law directs DOD to “sustain and operate” GPS for military and civilian purposes. How can innovative GPS technologies contribute to “sustain and operate” missions?
• Who should participate in decisions regarding the timing of GPS upgrades and satellite launches?
• Where does the most accurate data on cyber and other threats to GPS satellites, ground stations, military and civil user equipment, and commercial receivers reside? Who evaluates that data to determine the overall risks to GPS? Should those risks be shared with all users? How quickly will the most severe risks be mitigated?
• Do the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of State have sufficient resources to detect and prosecute illegal and irresponsible spoofing and jamming incidents in the United States and overseas?
• What is the earliest date the much-anticipated L1C, L2C, and L5 signals can be operational?

The GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA) believes the U.S. government does not have to shoulder such difficult and urgent questions alone. GPSIA looks forward to sharing insights while working with government agencies and the wider user community to answer these questions and put in place executable plans to address these challenges.

<p>The post Questions that urgently need answers first appeared on GPS World.</p>

1976: The first military GPS five-channel receiver built in one of several programs that studied the feasibility of GPS. The receiver weighed more than 270 pounds and had seats for two operators. (Image: Rockwell Collins/Smithsonian)

Half a century ago, on December 22, 1973, Deputy Secretary of Defense William P. Clements, on the recommendation of the Defense Systems Acquisition and Review Council, directed the entire Department of Defense — through the Navstar GPS Joint Program Office, under the spectacular leadership of  Col. Bradford Parkinson — to proceed with the GPS program. While this magazine mostly focuses on the present and the future, we occasionally pause to remember how it all began.

In the following articles, we are lucky to benefit from the long memories of four gentlemen who were there. Read the full articles.

“Lost in the desert, they demanded GPS” by Gaylord Green

“From ‘We don’t need it’ to ‘We can’t live without it'” by Martin Faga

“They used GPS even before it was fully built” by Dave Zilkoski

“GPS: The birth of the commercial GPS industry and how it changed the world” by Charles R. Trimble

<p>The post The early days of GPS: How it was adopted by the US military and surveyors first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: imaginima/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

Fifty years since it was designed and approved by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), the GPS is at risk of losing its status as the world’s gold-standard location service, reported The Wall Street Journal.

In a recent paper published by Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, “China’s BeiDou: New Dimensions of Great Power Competition,” Sarah Sewall, executive vice president for strategic issues at IQT and co-authors Tyler Vandenburg and Kaj Malden outline their finding that China’s version of GPS is part of the country’s longstanding effort to join the technological ranks of leading nations and use its capabilities to achieve geopolitical advantage across the globe.

Sewall’s assessment of BeiDou’s technical superiority received some unexpected support from a government advisory board on GPS, which stated that “GPS’s capabilities are now substantially inferior to those of China’s BeiDou,” and urged the administration to regain U.S. leadership in the field.

The BeiDou constellation is newer and has more satellites than any other system and has more than ten times as many monitoring stations around the world than GPS does. As a result, BeiDou’s accuracy is much better in many places, including the developing world.

Sewall points out that in cases where BeiDou provides the most accurate positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) data, particularly in the global south, China may be able to influence other nations’ economies, stating that it is one example of “a new form of great power competition that most in the U.S. government don’t recognize.” China is providing superior PNT information to enhance its diplomatic, economic and military power and the United States cannot afford to cede this area of longstanding advantage.

BeiDou being newer and more advanced than other GNSS, makes it easier for China to encourage other nations to use its signals and purchase specialized equipment, especially when equipment purchases are heavily subsidized by the Chinese government, harming the U.S. economy and its status as the leader of GNSS technology.

Recent launch and surveillance fears

On May 16, 2023, China launched its most recent BeiDou satellite to replenish the constellation, bringing its total to 56 satellites, nearly twice as many as the 31 GPS satellites.

The latest BeiDou satellites also feature two-way messaging, a feature that GPS does not have. It is mainly available in China and requires special chips that are not widely available in the consumer market. It enables users to send short messages in areas without ground network cell coverage and can be used for search and rescue operations.

The CNBC report noted the fear that, with its most recent enhancements, the BeiDou system could be used as a surveillance device — as the two-way messaging feature reveals a user’s locations as well as other types of data.

Additionally, with the growing number of applications for cellphones and an increase in autonomous vehicles that use the BeiDou system, more and more user data is being transmitted.

The U.S. military is upgrading GPS with more-modern satellites that are designed to give nonmilitary devices more-precise coordinates in more indoor and hard-to-reach spaces. However, the next-generation GPS service for civilians is not expected to be released for several years.

GPS pioneered the PNT industry by offering civilians a new, free-to-use system. While originally developed for DOD, it turned into a critical global infrastructure that underlies a vast swath of the U.S. economy.

Besides GPS and BeiDou, there are two other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), Russia’s Glonass and the European Union’s Galileo, as well as regional systems from Japan (QZSS) and India (NavIc).

BeiDou, once a small regional network with clunky receivers and few civilian users, has grown significantly since launching its first two satellites in 2000. It now has more than 30 precision-enhancing monitoring stations and claims to pinpoint users’ locations to within several centimeters, along with offering basic two-way communication capabilities.

Both BeiDou and GPS offer a variety of nonmilitary benefits that expand beyond the systems’ original expectations, from Uber drivers who often rely on a smartphones GNSS data to locate customers to farmers who can use GPS-based applications for farm planning, field mapping, solid sampling and more. GPS has been called “the silent utility” because signals are used in almost every technology, said Dana Goward, president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation.

Looking forward 

GPS guides U.S. missiles, ships and troops through more-secure military frequencies kept separate from its civilian signals. Its past dominance even made rival militaries reliant on the Pentagon-controlled system.

The U.S. military has long planned to upgrade GPS with a fleet of modernized and upgradable satellites that provide more-precise coordinates subject to less interference. The newer satellites broadcast data to civilian users over a new frequency called L5.

The Space Force has 17 L5-equipped satellites in orbit after a series of delays  but has yet to reach the 24 live satellites needed to run a reliable system. Some already-built satellites sit in a Colorado warehouse awaiting their turn for a funded launch.

The Space Force said in a statement that GPS continues to set the gold standard in its field.

“While other nations may report improvements in accuracy and equivalent performance in availability, GPS is still the clear leader in integrity and is the only system accepted for international flight use,” a spokeswoman for the branch’s Space Systems Command told The Wall Street Journal.

<p>The post China’s BeiDou challenges US GPS dominance first appeared on GPS World.</p>