Miniaturized Radiation Hardened Beam-Steerable GPS Receiver Front End

Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) capability via GPS services are used by NASA for (1) real-time on-board autonomous navigation, (2) attitude determination and (3) earth science including sea height and climate monitoring. It is expected that over the next two decades approximately 95% of ALL space missions will operate within the GPS service envelope. GPS receivers will be "embedded" in most instruments and will require improved SWAP and increased sensitivity for improved tolerance from large interferers and/or ruggedness to multipath errors. The RFIC developed in this Phase II will have 4 coherent GPS receivers on a single silicon die which improves the SWaP metric over the existing solution by 30x. In addition to supporting beam steering capability, it'll provide interference tolerance and signal recovery in multipath environment, such as those during positioning of precision equipment on the International Space Station (ISS). The other NASA programs that will benefit from this device are: 1. Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission 2. Sexton GPS receiver for Xray Telescope on ISS. 3. COSMIC IIA,B Missions 4. Jason III Mission for Oceanography The schedule in this proposal will have the delivery of the initial prototype samples made available to NASA in 12 months. Estimated TRL In: 3 Estimated TRL Out: 4

The GPS system will be designed as custom RF ASIC chipset will be used in the navigation of spacecraft. This solution will provide NASA with a compact, beam steerable low power solution that can be deployed in all spacecrafts including small satellites. A partial list of potential NASA applications that will benefit from this GPS Receiver IC is: 1. International Space Station 2. Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission 3. COSMIC II Missions 4. Jason III Mission 5. TDRSS Augmentation Service for Satellites (TASSS) 6. Array of GPS receivers 7. Space Based L-Band Receivers

Several military applications where this technology can be applied are: ¿ Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Most of these vehicles are unable to carry any phase array antenna system due to payload constraints. The technology developed under this proposal will achieve the SWaP (Size, Weight & Power) target so as to enable this capability for these vehicles. ¿ Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUV) UUV will also similarly benefit from having this capability. This technology has significant application in the commercial world. Some of the applications areas are: 1. Automotive (market size 10s of millions of units per year) o Collision Avoidance Systems o Driver Aides such as Parking Assistance o "Driver Replacement" Traffic Throughput Optimization. This could potentially conserve millions of gallons of gasoline per year 2. Agriculture (market size 10s of thousands of units per year) 3. Avionics (market size thousands of units per year) o Collision Avoidance o Sophisticated Weather Radar 4. Microwave Links in Multipath Environments (market size 100s of thousands of units per year) 5. Handheld Communications (market size 100s of millions of units) o Beamforming WiFi o Beamforming Cellular Communications (LTE and beyond) o Mobile TV Electronically Steerable Antenna 6. Industrial (market size 10s of thousands of units) o Object identification o Object location o Driverless Equipment (such as forklifts) 7. RFID (market size 100s of millions of units per year)

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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