The Navigation and Weapons Concept Development (NWCD) branch is undertaking several new initiatives in the area of navigation under the leadership of branch head Mitch Markota and subject matter expert (SME) in navigation and Global Positioning Systems, Ray DiEsposti, Ph. D.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the current standard in both the civilian and DoD sectors and is used worldwide for aerial, marine, ground and other types of navigation systems. GPS provides both a positioning and a timing service for navigation and time synchronization. GPS allows positioning accuracy within a few meters and timing accuracy of several nanoseconds (a nanosecond is defined as one billionth of a second). GPS is so accurate that the system must compensate for relativistic effects on the GPS satellite clocks, e.g. time dilation.

While GPS is used extensively, a major concern is the loss of GPS service due to radio frequency (RF) interference. An emergent GPS interference issue involves the planned deployment of 4-G wireless service transmitter base stations. These transmitters have been shown to interfere with some types of GPS receivers. Additionally, the DoD has concerns about the loss of GPS service due to adversarial jamming.

GPS represents only one technology used for navigation. Other navigation technologies prevalent in Navy systems include inertial navigation systems, as well as radar and celestial navigation. Currently, several DoD organizations are involved in the development of alternative navigation technologies. Some weapons systems use homing seekers for navigation and guidance. GPS can also be used in homing seekers to provide more robust systems.

Several technical program offices at NAWCWD provide their own internal expertise to develop requirements and technical solutions for navigation and guidance for their own systems. A branch providing centralized support and consultation is an efficient arrangement since it can be difficult for busy technical leads in program offices to keep abreast of all of the latest technologies, technical, and programmatic issues. NWCD is helping program offices NAWCWD-wide to meet their navigation needs.

To better serve NAWCWD technical program offices and lead development of new technologies, NWCD focused on five key initiatives:
1. Horizontal integration of navigation expertise and innovation by creating and linking a consortium of navigation SMEs within NAWCWD and NAVAIR.
2. Hosting a Navigation home page, with assistance from the Warfighter Response Center (WRC). This will link a community of navigation SMEs, users and other stakeholders; it will also be used to link to other important navigation websites, disseminate important navigation-related information and provide access to a branch-developed periodic newsletter.
3. Navigation technology innovation through the development of inventions and patents. Also, sponsorship of Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) and Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) projects involving small companies and universities, as well as technology transfer from NAWCWD to private industry through Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) relationships.
4. Working more closely with the central organizations responsible for GPS and navigation within the Navy -- Program Executive Office and Program Management Office PEO C4I and PMW/A-170 at SPAWAR, San Diego and NAVAIR, Patuxent River, Md.
5. Providing short training courses at NAWCWD in the field of navigation and GPS.

According to Markota, “The Navigation and Weapons Concept Development branch at China Lake is developing effective partnerships with other navigation SMEs located throughout the Navy. We identify and develop game changing innovative solutions to keep our warfighters at the leading edge of technological advancements.”

Within the past 18 months, NWCD has already met several milestones toward accomplishing their five initiatives. They developed the first periodic navigation newsletter; provided advisory and technical information to various organizations at NAVAIR Headquarters in the area of navigation technology innovation and alternatives to GPS; developed improved target tracking filters using GPS receiver measurements; completed six patent applications in the field of emerging navigation technology; launched a Phase I STTR program involving three small company/university teams; and, started a new SBIR project tentatively scheduled to begin fiscal year 2013.