2017 Air, Space and Cyber Conference 18 September 2017 (Day 1) Report
MONS Correspondent Marty Kauchak files end-of-the-day report from the US Air Force (USAF) Association-sponsored Air, Space and Cyber Conference at National Harbor, MD/USA. A major component of GPS modernisation is a new military signal called the military code (M-code), designed to further improve the anti-jamming and secure access of the military GPS signals. Troy Brunk, Vice President and General Manager for Communication, Navigation & Electronic Warfare Solutions at Rockwell Collins, explained: “As adversaries increase their ability to challenge and/or deny GPS access, M-Code is quickly becoming very important.”
To that end, Rockwell Collins recently delivered the last of a 770 M-Code GPS receiver order to the USAF Space and Missile Systems Center. Brunk spoke to this part of Rockwell Collins’ expanding military portfolio, pointing out: “We’ve been an industry leader in military GPS for multiple decades. During this time, we’ve developed and maintained key partnerships and business relationships with hundreds of industry partners. We’re currently working closely with them on the M-Code development programmes and will continue to do so as we assist the US military transition to M-Code.”
Of significance, Rockwell Collins’ traditional military GPS customers are US allies, with most of these key customers also being NATO countries. The industry expert added: “Since M-Code is in the final stages of development, currently M-Code receivers are not being sold to our overseas customers.”
Brunk outlined other developments the defence community and adjacent sectors will see from Rockwell Collins in the GPS market space in the next six months. “GPS anti-jamming (AJ) and anti-spoofing (AS) improvements are in high demand. For the same reasons M-Code deployment is important, so are improvements to GPS AJ & AS,” he added. “In addition, Rockwell Collins recently announced an alliance agreement with QinetiQ from the UK. This clearly indicates RC’s commitment to the future of multi-constellation global navigation satellite systems receivers.”
In a bordering product space, Rockwell Collins, “is also involved in non-GPS positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) solutions, a US Army initiative for next generation PNT systemmes to address GPS challenges in denied operations, which consist of other sensors to augment our military GPS capability. This would also include leveraging our core capability in communications/data links to incorporate two-way current time and position transfer, not to mention other PNT-related autonomous sensors.”
Marty Kautschak
