[4/19/07] In a mission to try and identify and develop alternative means of geolocation in the absence of the Global Positioning System (GPS), a Boeing-led industry team has won a concept-development contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Boeing announced April 18.
 
The goal of the Robust Surface Navigation (RSN) program is to develop technologies that can exploit various “signals of opportunity”– be it a transmission from a satellite, cell phone tower and/or a TV broadcast tower – to provide precise location and navigation information to ground troops if and when GPS signals are interfered with, whether by jamming or geography.

Boeing’s development team includes Rosum Corp. of Mountain View, Calif.; NavSys Corp. of Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Shared Spectrum of Vienna, Va.

DARPA said another contractor team, Argon ST, is working in the RSN program, with a phase-1A contract worth $2.4 million.