Air Force asks Raytheon to provide trusted computing to GPS with secure ASIC components
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. – Navigation and guidance experts at the Raytheon Co. will add trusted computing capability to high-precision secure U.S. Air Force airborne Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance under terms of an $11.4 million order announced Tuesday.
Officials of the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center at Robins Air Force base, Ga., are asking the Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems segment in El Segundo, Calif., to implement trusted application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology in the Air Force Miniature Airborne Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver 2000 (MAGR-2000).
The MAGR-2000 is a modular GPS receiver applications module-based open-systems architecture is a form, fit, and function backward-compatible replacement of the MAGR, which provides enhancements like improved acquisition and GPS solution performance, all-in-view GPS satellite tracking, and GPS integrity.
The MAGR provides precision navigation for U.S. military aircraft and smart munitions by accessing special encrypted military positioning signals from GPS satellites, called P/Y-Code. The MAGR-2000 also includes a selective availability anti-spoofing module (SAASM) upgrade.
Raytheon works together with GPS receiver specialist Trimble Inc. in Sunnyvale, Calif., on the MAGR-2000 program. Trimble provides militarized P/Y-Code GPS receivers for embedding in the Raytheon MAGR-2000 avionics.
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The MAGR-2000 also incorporates the new M-Code for further security improvements to military GPS signals against electronic warfare (EW) jamming and cyber attacks.
The MAGR-2000 GPS navigation avionics is aboard several different kinds of military aircraft, including the F/A-18 Hornet jet fighter-bomber, VH-3D presidential helicopter, and V-22 Osprey tiltrotor. The system is for new and existing military aircraft.
Trusted ASICs are high-reliability electronic components designed and manufactured under U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) supervision and certified to military standards to protect sensitive electronics from tampering, cyber attacks, environmental extremes, and other security threats.
On this order Raytheon will do the work in El Segundo, Calif., and Huntsville, Ala., and should be finished by May 2020. For more information contact Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems online at www.raytheon.com, or the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center-Robins at https://www.robins.af.mil/Units/AFLCMC.
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John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
