Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N162-076

Description

To address the Marines need for a miniaturized inertial survey system which can meet or exceed the current Improved Position and Azimuth Determining System (IPADS) performance requirements with significant reductions in form factor and weight, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop the new Miniaturized Enhanced Position and Azimuth Determination (MEPAD) system based on novel complementary blending of state-of-the-art small form factor inertial sensors combined with optimized Kalman filter fusion algorithms. The innovative tightly integrated architecture allows precise and timely Survey Control Point (SCP) azimuth determination and maintaining of position knowledge while traversing a common Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid. In Phase I, POC will develop the proposed MEPAD system architecture and subsystem components requirements. The optimized algorithms will also be developed, modeled, and simulated incorporating the hardware noise specifications to demonstrate the feasibility of MEPAD. POC will provide the details on the hardware/software required and provide an estimate of the size and weight, and prepare a preliminary plan to develop and evaluate a prototype MEPAD system in Phase II. In Phase II, POC plans to build and evaluate MEPAD against the current IPADS performance specifications. A plan for Phase III transition to the Marine Corps will be developed.