CTSi and L3 Technologies [LLL] this month finished flight-testing a new integrated communication and navigation system for the Navy that can be used in GPS-denied environments.
This new Enhanced Link Navigation System (ELNS) was built as a prototype under an $8.7 million Navy Small Business Innovative Research Phase III contract. The flight test occurred at St. Mary’s County Regional Airport near Patuxent River, Md.
The Navy’s ELNS project manager, Martin King, said the system is scalable for unmanned aircraft in all groups, ranging from high integrity needs like the MQ-25 to smaller unmanned aircraft that have stricter weight allowances.
“ELNS is the first system to bring GPS-denied navigation capability to small UAS. By combining significant investments in related fields to create a whole new capability like this, ELNS takes Position, Navigation, and Timing for air vehicles in a compelling new direction,” King added.
The companies said ELNS uses L3’s waveforms that defeat adversary capabilities that detect and disrupt allied signals. This is done by using waveforms that are essential in communications-denied and GPS-denied environments.
Ian Gallimore, CTSi chief technology officer, explained that ELNS provides area navigation to replace GPS at ranges over 50 nautical miles and through aircraft landing. Airtec pilots provided turn-key flight test support. The pilots said that “ELNS is as good as any instrument landing system I’ve flown, I’d fly it in the weather.”
“There is a strong fit between what ELNS brings and the threats that our forces are facing today,” Tom Sanders, CTSi CEO, said in a statement.
Gallimore highlighted the team put ELNS in the air in under 18 months and that “it worked the first time and every time during 15 flights which included 152 approaches.”