Satellite manufacturer Boeing is augmenting the GPS satellite network via additional capacity on Iridium’s commercial satellite communications system as part of a Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) research program to keep GPS receivers working amid electronic jamming and interference.
   The NRL awarded a two-year, $40 million sole-source contract to Boeing Oct. 2 to optimize technology that will be used in an operational environment for the Navy’s High Integrity GPS (HIGPS) program. The HIGPS program is part of the Navy’s research budget in demonstrating the capability for Iridium satellites to enhance current GPS navigation and timing capabilities. Boeing said the HIGPS GPS enhancement would capitalize on the Iridium low-Earth orbit constellation of 66 orbiting satellites to improve satellite navigation performance over stand-alone GPS navigation and guidance.
   “The GPS-aiding signals are designed to enable appropriately equipped warfighters to lock on and maintain a GPS signal quickly, even while operating in RF signal-restrictive areas like cities, forests, mountains, and canyons, as well as under enemy jamming attempts or amid battlefield RF noise,” Boeing said in a company statement. “In the program’s first phase, we demonstrated the acquisition of a GPS signal under substantial jamming while moving. As the GPS system provides navigational data in time, location, and velocity, Iridium will provide a powerful signal that rapidly changes ground track to accelerate an initial position fix. The result is an augmentation to GPS that provides HIGPS receivers with improved navigation, high signal integrity, precision accuracy, and more jam-resistant capabilities.”