QUNAV LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF173-011

Description

To counter Anti-Access and Area-Denial (A2/AD), one strategy is to launch synchronized attack using countermeasure-adaptable weapons with tailored autonomy so as to saturate the threat and deliver increased lethal and selectable effects. Optimized Mesh-networking Platform Navigation (OMPIN) is hereby proposed to support networked heterogeneous munitions equipped with a disparity of sensing capabilities. The design of OMPIN takes advantage of the fact that the navigation states of one weapon is practically decoupled from anothers, making it possible to implement an atomic decentralized estimation in which individual nodes first estimate their own state using measurements aboard and then apply inter-nodal measurements. In the decentralized filter, each node only estimates its own navigation state, not its neighboring nodes, thus being scalable. However, it takes into account the uncertainty of those assisting states as well as cross-correlation between nodes in contact. In Phase I, the proposed OMPIN technology will be developed and evaluated via computer simulation together with mutual aiding between networking and navigation. Radio systems suitable for ad hoc networking with inter-nodal measurements will be studied for prototyping in Phase II.