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Defense Giant will Supply Secure GPS

Aug 17, 2019

Photo illust. Wikimedia — Sgt. 1st Class Seth Eaton, U.S. Army Reserve military police Soldier with the 300th MP Brigade, of Stow, Ohio, takes on a land navigation course in this year's 200th Military Police Command's Best Warrior Competition held at Camp Blanding, Fla., Feb. 9. The winning noncommissioned officer and junior enlisted Soldiers will move on to the U.S. Army Reserve Command competition in May. (U.S. Army photo by Master Sgt. Michel Sauret)

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The Global Positioning System (GPS) and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) are essential to military navigation. GPS receivers are vulnerable to jamming even if they are encrypted. Signals from satellites are so weak that even a one-watt to 10-watt jammer can deny GPS coverage for a large area of both military and civilian signals, according to mil-embedded.com.

The US military is on a quest for better methods to secure GPS from spoofing and jamming threats. A new technology by defense giant Raytheon will make GPS more secure for military systems. New modules and receivers will give military aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and weapon systems secure and reliable access to modernized GPS.

Raytheon received security certification for new GPS modules and receivers from the Global Positioning Systems Directorate at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center.

“Because GPS is under constant attack, we worked with our government partners to create new M-code modules and receivers that give the military secure and resilient navigation systems,” said Eric Ditmars, vice president of Raytheon’s Secure Sensor Solutions. “And since the tech is platform agnostic, it will work on a wide-range of platforms in the air, on the ground or at sea.”

The GPS modules are equipped with cryptographic capabilities provided by General Dynamics.

“Operators need a system that is flexible and fast,” said Chad Pillsbury, director of Resilient Navigation at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. “We’ve designed these GPS systems with a common security architecture – meaning we can get this capability in the hands of operators faster and eliminate the need for additional security certifications,” according to prnewswire.com.