Here's an irony U.S. soldiers could savor: Imagine using a television transmitter in Baghdad beaming anti-U.S. programming to help geo-locate and destroy an insurgent stronghold.
Such a scenario could be in the cards one day if a new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) effort bears fruit.
The Robust Surface Navigation (RSN) program is trying to develop technology that will use "signals of opportunity" from nearby terrestrial sources such as TV and cell phone towers to supplement or even replace Global Positioning System (GPS) signals when they're being jammed or blocked.
Teams led by Boeing and Argon ST are competing in the 15-month first phase of the program, which kicked off in February. This phase will test the feasibility of the concept, at which point DARPA will decide whether to proceed with a second demonstration phase and which of the teams should do that work.
GPS receivers calculate the user's position by comparing how long it takes for time-stamped signals from several GPS satellites to reach it. But the relatively weak GPS signal isn't terribly difficult to jam and can be easily blocked in the kinds of urban environments U.S. soldiers often find themselves in.
If GPS is unavailable, a nearby TV tower could do the trick. Of course, it would make no difference whether that tower was broadcasting Al Jazeera, C-Span, or I Dream of Jeannie.
"If one could also get some sort of a time-sync signal from a television transmitter, and if you knew where the television transmitter was, then you can assess exactly how far away you are from that television transmitter, just like you do with GPS today," says Bart Ferrell, RSN program manager at Boeing Phantom Works. Comparing several such signals could give you a pretty good idea of where you are.
The ultimate goal of RSN is to develop an enhanced geo-location receiver no bulkier than today's hardware that can both receive GPS and other satellite-based positioning signals such as Europe's Galileo, and also scan and exploit terrestrial signals. If no other signals are available, standalone beacons dropped by warfighters could be an option as well.
Boeing’s team includes ROSUM of Mountain View, Calif.; NAVSYS of Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Shared Spectrum, of Vienna, Va. The Argon team also includes Honeywell and Ticom Geomatics.
--Jefferson Morris
Is "anti-U.S. programming" inherently bad? We are talking opinions here, not bombs. Isn't USA anti-Iraq? Is that better?
Isn't it time to leave those Iraqis alone to sort out their own problems? As long as USA stays in Iraq there will be a worldwide terrorist threat, not the opposite.
Posted by: Owen Jacobs | April 20, 2007 at 06:44 AM
your statements are matters of opinion, of course. in my opinion:
1. the US (officially) is trying to be pro-Iraq. we are certainly spending lives and billions of dollars with that stated goal.
2. no good choices re: leaving the Iraqis to themselves.
3. the terrorists came to the US when the US was not in Iraq
Posted by: Sean Meade | April 20, 2007 at 04:01 PM