Photo: uAvionix

The ping200XR TSO has received TSO-C112e and TSO-C166b for transponder and ADS-B functionality — TSO-C188b for its internal pressure altimeter, and TSO-C145e for the integral aviation GPS.

It is a compact Mode S ADS-B transponder with an integrated GPS receiver, measuring 47 x 72 x 10mm and weighing just 52 grams. This device combines the functionality of a transponder and GPS into a single unit, making it suitable for airspace access and operations involving certified aircraft.

The ping200XR facilitates seamless integration into national and international airspace systems by enabling aircraft detection by secondary surveillance radar (SSR), traffic collision avoidance systems (TCAS), and ADS-B IN receivers. Additionally, it has received technical standard order (TSO) certification from the FAA, ensuring that it meets specific performance standards established by the aviation regulatory body.

The ping200XR can be used in high-altitude aircraft and balloons operating in Class A airspace and above. With the new TSO certifications, the device can now be utilized in regions that mandate such approvals, including Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. This certification also makes the ping200XR TSO a viable option for aircraft pursuing type certification, such as electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) platforms. The certified version is scheduled to become available for purchase starting in September 2024.

<p>The post uAvionix receiver achieves FAA TSO certification first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Photo: uAvionix

uAvionix has successfully installed and approved its surface situational awareness systems at two major U.S. airports: Indianapolis International Airport (IND) and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS). Developed in collaboration with Capital Sciences, the systems have passed the Service Acceptance Test (SAT) and will be operational for Air Traffic Control (ATC) starting June 30, 2024.

“This milestone marks the first approvals under the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Surface Awareness Initiative (SAI), part of a broader effort to enhance runway safety across the nation,” said Christian Ramsey, chief commercial officer for uAvionix.

The uAvionix systems use the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) service called FlightLine, which offers controllers real-time, precise depictions of aircraft and vehicles on the airport surface. This technology seeks to improve situational awareness and reduce the risk of runway incursions.

The delivery of the FlightLine systems to IND and AUS was completed and accepted within a 90-day timeframe, thanks to close collaboration with the FAA, National Air Traffic Control Association (NATCA), Indianapolis Airport Authority and AUS.

Each airport also installed several of uAvionix’s VTU-20 ADS-B Vehicle Movement Area Transmitters (VMATs) on airport vehicles. The VTU-20 is an FAA-approved system that allows vehicles operating on runways and taxiways to be electronically seen by the tower and aircraft equipped with ADS-B In technologies, further reducing the risk of runway incursions.

Following the success of these implementations, uAvionix will continue working with the FAA to expand the capability to other airports nationwide.

Key benefits of the enhanced system include:

• Improved real-time tracking of aircraft and vehicles on the airfield.
• Increased safety and efficiency in all weather conditions.
• Decreased risk of runway incursions due to timely and accurate data.

<p>The post uAvionix delivers situational awareness systems to airports first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Photo: SandboxAQ

SandboxAQ has released AQNav, designed for navigation across air, land and sea when GPS signals are jammed or unavailable.  

As of June 2024, AQNav has logged more than 200 flight hours and 40 sorties across multiple regions of the world on four different aircraft types, ranging in size from single-engine planes to large military transport aircraft. 

AQNav is a geomagnetic navigation system that uses proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, powerful quantum sensors and the Earth’s crustal magnetic field. The system seeks to provide an un-jammable, all-weather, terrain-agnostic, real-time navigation solution in situations where GPS signals are unavailable, denied or spoofed.  

The system uses extremely sensitive quantum magnetometers to acquire data from Earth’s crustal magnetic field, which exhibits geographically unique patterns – similar to a human fingerprint. AQNav uses AI algorithms to compare this data against known magnetic maps, allowing the system to quickly and accurately find its position. Due to the high sensitivity of quantum sensors, AI algorithms are applied to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, removing any mechanical, electrical or other interference that would impact the system’s ability to acquire its location. 

It is available globally and can be used in air, land and sea applications. The system does not rely on visual ground features or satellite transmissions to function and is not affected by weather conditions.  

AQNav operates at room temperature, requires no shielding and has a small form factor that can be integrated into a wide variety of platforms, from multi-engine airliners to UAVs. Its passive technology emits no electronic signals, which reduces the aircraft’s detectability. 

AQNav seeks to increase useful navigation for aircraft navigating within the frameworks of regulatory bodies such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). SandboxAQ and its partners are continuing to explore a broad range of use cases for both commercial and defense applications. 

<p>The post SandboxAQ unveils AI and quantum-powered navigation system first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Photo: American Aerospace Technologies (AATI)

American Aerospace, an Iridium partner, has received a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct UAV surveillance of critical infrastructure in California’s San Joaquin Valley for Chevron, an oil and gas company.

Enabled by Iridium’s global L-Band satellite connectivity, AATI’s AiRanger UAV will conduct remote aerial surveillance of the energy company’s pipeline and production facilities. Iridium’s network offers beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) connectivity, including remote command and control (C2) and detect and avoid (DAA) capabilities. The UAV will send information via Iridium satellites to conduct routine inspections.

Iridium partner Blue Sky Network customized and integrated its SkyLink 7100 voice, data and BVLOS terminal on the UAVs. The SkyLink 7100 offers continuous tracking and C2 capabilities for aviation and UAV operations.

The AiRanger is the first UAV to comply with industry standards for the DAA system and meet FAA BVLOS operation requirements. This achievement aims to pave the way for broader use of BVLOS UAVs to enhance situational awareness, reduce inspection costs and maximize value.

<p>The post American Aerospace granted FAA waiver for BVLOS operation first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Iridium STL is being deployed by L3Harris to protect critical FAA data center infrastructure. (Photo: Iridium)

Iridium Communications has entered a five-year agreement with L3 Harris. Under the agreement, Iridium will provide its satellite time and location (STL) service to more than three dozen L3Harris-operated communications network backbone nodes and a similar number of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facilities throughout the United States.

L3Harris, responsible for operating a private network for the FAA, provides voice, data and video communications for the National Airspace System operations and mission support functions. Given the critical nature of timing synchronization within the L3Harris communications network, particularly for supporting various critical infrastructure applications, the Iridium STL service plays a pivotal role in the overall network timing architecture by eliminating dependencies on GPS as the primary timing source.

The solution for L3Harris includes compact devices provided by Adtran’s Oscilloquartz division, which are designed to receive Iridium STL signals. These devices seamlessly integrate into the network and meet nationwide network timing synchronization requirements.

In April 2024, Iridium acquired Satelles, a secure satellite-based time and location service provider.

<p>The post Iridium partners with L3 Harris for FAA infrastructure protection 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>

Between 1978 and at least the mid-1980s, maybe even the late 1980s, the Air Force tried several times to cancel the program. At the time, I was a Capitol Hill staffer for the House Intelligence Committee. In one of those efforts to cancel GPS, Tom Cooper, who was a lead staffer for the House Armed Services Committee, came to me and said, “Can you guys give any reason for keeping GPS?” And I said, “Yes, it greatly improves the accuracy of SIGINT [signals intelligence] locations. It makes a very big difference.”

So, Tom used that, along with other arguments, for why we should keep GPS. The Committee and Congress ultimately decided they would, despite the Air Force’s resistance.

The Air Force’s resistance came from the Strategic Air Command, which in the 1980s believed it would never use satellites. They were concerned about the satellites being shot down. I found this amusing because they were flying around in aircraft at a few thousand feet and were concerned about satellites flying at 11,000 miles. But they were, so they were laggards.

Image: USAF/Staff Sgt. Kyle Johnson

Which service adopted GPS first and why?

The service that by far led the way was the Army. It spent $100 million a year absorbing NRO capabilities. They also spent money on GPS, though not as much. By the time we got to the first Gulf War, in 1991, we had a partial GPS constellation — I think of 18 satellites of the 24 required — and that meant that you didn’t have 100% coverage all day long. So, coverage maps of their areas of interest were generated every day to let people in the field know when they would have service. Most of them didn’t have receivers either. Most of the receivers they did have were Precision Lightweight GPS Receivers (PLGR), knows as “pluggers”, which were the first “handheld” receivers, but they were pretty big.

Once the fight got going, many of the troops wrote home and asked their moms and dads to send them civilian receivers.

Yes! Thousands and thousands of them showed up in theater. Some troops taped them to the windscreens of their helicopters or jet aircraft. They were just jury-rigged into everything because, despite their limitations at the time, they were very, very useful, unlike anything else. So, now everybody realized, “Oh my goodness, this is really a big deal. This is a game changer!”

Then we got more modern receivers, integrated receivers, the whole thing. However, at the end of the Gulf War, the Air Force still had no plan to equip any of its aircraft with GPS. As Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, I was called over to the Armed Services Committee and asked, “What is your plan for integrating GPS receivers into your aircraft fleet?” I said, “There is no plan.” and they were incredulous. They looked at me like “Well, you’re an idiot.”

It wasn’t me, however, and the staff knew my story before I gave it. As a result, Congress mandated it. They put it in that year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Within less than 10 years you had Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) and other GPS-guided weapons. So, that got it moving quickly.

By the end of the 1990s, the Air Force was fully on board and were equipping their aircraft with many weapons that depended on GPS. Meanwhile, GPS had moved to a full constellation of 24 satellites. Full operating capability was declared in 1995. The Navy proceeded similarly, but they were somewhat less affected. So, the Army remained a leader in using space.

The Chief of Staff of the Air Force asked me about Air Force use of GPS. I said, “Chief, the Air Force builds a lot of space stuff, but it doesn’t use it.” Of course, a short time later it was using it extensively. So, this ramp-up was very rapid — just a few years from “I don’t give a darn about these things” to “I can’t live without them.”

Brad Parkinson and his successors as JPO directors designed and built the system but had no role in its adoption, right?

No. They were going turn it over to the production house, if you will, and they did. Once the Air Force got on board with GPS guided weapons, adoption proceeded rapidly.

What about the Navy?

I don’t recall the Navy particularly. I do not at all accuse them of being laggards. I think they did what they needed, whatever that was.

Did later NDAAs expand that mandate to the other services?

I don’t know. I was out of the government by that time, so I lost track. I don’t think it was necessary. What people didn’t understand immediately was that you could do anything with this system. At the end of the day, it is a super accurate timing signal. There are many things you could do with that and people have done them. It quickly became evident that it was so pervasively useful, that anything you could think of involves GPS, from the era of the first Gulf War onward. By 10 years later, many weapons systems in all the services were GPS-guided. I later served on the board of ATK and we were building GPS-guided artillery rounds. I am pretty sure that the ATACMS [Army Tactical Missile System] you hear about today is GPS guided.

So, in a couple of years, all the services wanted to integrate GPS in all their platforms and weapons.

Well, except that the amazing thing was, despite all the things that people had done with GPS in the Gulf War — starting with those helicopters that went in the first night and took out the command and control system, which were guided by Army-provided pluggers taped onto the windscreens by their pilots, and downed pilots using GPS to give their coordinates to the rescue teams — at the end of the war the Air Force still didn’t have a plan to put them on its aircraft! That’s when Congress mandated it. It was amazing.

Despite that, once they got going, particularly once they got going with GPS-guided weapons, everything changed. I don’t know whether the Air Force became leaders, but they were certainly aggressive integrators of the program into the service. There was no more, “We won’t use satellites” and all that.

That was after my time. I left government in early 1993. There were other big fish to fry at the same time. As important as I realized it was, I still didn’t realize how important it was, and I was way ahead of most everybody else, in the Air Force anyway.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) chief scientist at the time said, “The great thing about GPS is that it is a tool around which you can build myriad capabilities.” He outlined a few for the FAA, many of which they have since done. The same thing began to happen in the services, particularly in the Air Force, in which GPS-guided weapons were pervasive within 10 years.

Part of Brad’s motto for JPO was “The mission of this program office is, number one, to drop five bombs in the same hole.”

Yeah. By the way, one mistake that people make a lot is they think there were GPS-guided weapons during the first Gulf War. That was not the case. There were none by then. There were precision guided munitions that were guided by maps and lasers and a variety of means. But, despite the belief of many authors, there were no GPS-guided weapons at that time.

So, which was the first conflict in which GPS was used?

It was the Iraq War, in 2003. It was a major user of GPS-guided weapons.

Any other thoughts on the 50th anniversary from the military side of things?

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance to military operations and, frankly, to civilian life as well, of being able to easily and accurately navigate or have highly accurate time.
You can do it with a $100 receiver, whereas it used to require a $10,000 receiver and you had to have it re-initialized from a standard. So that’s what everybody does. Now, this has created probably more dependency than is healthy and many nations have backup that we don’t have.

Such as Loran-C. That’s a big subject of debate these days, as you know.

Well, it’s been a subject of debate for 20 years. Everybody agrees, but nobody moves.

The Department of Transportation recently released an action plan on the adoption of complementary PNT systems. So, there’s some movement.

As a one-time government bureaucrat, what you do when people are on your back is launch a study and say, “Well, it will be done in a year or two.” They have done this time, after time, after time.

There was the Volpe study more than 20 years ago.

Exactly.

<p>The post From “We don’t need it” to “We can’t live without it” first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: Percepto

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted Percepto a nationwide waiver to operate a full fleet of its UAVs remotely by one operator.

Prior to the approval, Percepto UAVs required one pilot per UAV. Now, users can operate up to 30 drone-in-a-box systems simultaneously with one pilot. The waiver aims to improve the capabilities of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) UAV operations across the U.S. By utilizing remote pre-flight checks and advanced automation, this waiver eliminates the need for human interference or expensive radars.

According to the company, the approval is the final regulatory step to achieve large-scale remote UAV operations, following the recent approval for nationwide BVLOS operations.

Percepto’s drone-in-a-box systems consist of a UAV that operates out of a docking station, often used in remote or hard-to-access locations. When set up with a power source and internet connection, the docking station charges and autonomously operates the UAV, allowing operations to run 24/7 and reducing reliance on human presence or interference.

<p>The post Percepto granted FAA approval for fully autonomous fleet inspections first appeared on GPS World.</p>