SBIR-STTR Award

The land warrior has become increasingly dependent on handheld GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers for providing location information in high interference environments for Situation Awareness, etc. on modern battlefield. A solution is to replace the legacy antenna with a relatively inexpensive smart antenna appliqu‚ to null out the jam. This smart antenna should be a direct replacement for the current antenna, without any change to the receiver, and with minimal consumption of battery power. A jam indicator and interference signal level measurement can be provided with manual activation of antijam operation only when jam is detected.Recently, Wang Electro-Opto Corporation (WEO) successfully developed the first battery-operated "smart" personal antenna systems and invented miniaturized low-profile broadband antennas, which are enabling technologies for the development of a low-cost antijam handheld smart GPS antenna for retrofit into existing legacy handheld systems. WEO proposes this SBIR Phase-I program, in which it plans to demonstrate the feasibility of this low-cost, low power-consumption, small, light-weight smart antijam GPS antenna. A smart low-cost antijam GPS antenna would find widespread commercial applications in the private sector for personal, airplane (private) and automobile navigation, in which use of handheld GPS receivers is widespread andrapidly expanding.

Keywords:
GPS, HANDHELD RECEIVERS, DAGR, PLGR, APPLIQUE, ANTIJAM, NULL-STEERING ANTENNA, ADAPTIVE ANTENNA

The land warrior has become increasingly dependent on handheld GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers for providing location information in high interference environments for Situation Awareness, etc. on modern battlefield. A solution is to replace the legacy antenna with a relatively inexpensive smart antenna appliqu‚ to null out the jam. This smart antenna should be a direct replacement for the current antenna, without any change to the receiver, and with minimal consumption of battery power. A jam indicator and interference signal level measurement can be provided with manual activation of antijam operation only when jam is detected. In Phase-I, Wang Electro-Opto Corporation (WEO) successfully demonstrated the feasibility of such an antenna appliqu‚ for GPS L1 band. We propose a Phase-II program to expand the design to cover both L1 and L2 bands. Two approaches will be taken, one using conventional antennas, and the other using WEO's patented miniaturized slow-wave antenna. Brassboard antenna appliqu‚ with jam sensor and indicator with low power-consumption will be developed.

Keywords:
GPS, DAGR, APPLIQUE, NULL-STEERING ANTENNA, HANDHELD RECEIVERS, PLGR, ANTIJAM, ADAPTIVE ANTENNA