A-TECH CORPORATION — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF141-094

Description

ABSTRACT: The Air Force desires more accurate and more robust navigation for their intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and cruise missiles (CM) which must navigate entirely using the on-board inertial measurement unit (IMU) without an external aiding scheme. Team ATA proposes to develop a new set of algorithms aimed at the Quantification of Uncertainty for Advanced Dead Reckoning Algorithms (QUADRA). These next generation missile navigation algorithms will provide improved dead reckoning accuracy without external aiding using the navigation and guidance systems. The first part of the QUADRA algorithms is to replace the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). QUADRA will produce a filtering algorithm that uses a computationally scalable method of propagating non-Gaussian uncertainty distributions through nonlinear dynamics to efficiently determine the missiles navigation solution for position and attitude. BENEFIT: There are numerous anticipated benefits to Team ATAs Quantification of Uncertainty for Advanced Dead Reckoning Algorithms (QUADRA). Our new filtering solution will provide better filtering accuracy than the traditional EKF while maintaining computational tractability. Our scalable and computationally efficient algorithms for both constrained and flexible computing resources enable the algorithm to apply to more types of IMU-based navigation solutions. ATA has been developing technology for the U.S. Government and Aerospace contractors since 1975. ATAs success in generating additional revenue tied to our Phase I and Phase II SBIR projects has allowed ATA to grow and expand its business through Phase III commercialization and other spin-off contracts. As reported in the ATA Company Commercialization Report, we have received 48 Phase I SBIR awards and 21 Phase II awards. ATAs track record for commercialization of SBIR sponsored technology is excellent, resulting in a Commercialization Achievement Index of 95 and related cumulative revenues from sales and additional investments of over $42 million. Team ATAs approach to commercializing QUADRA starts with additional engineering services contracts where Team ATA can provide inertial navigation expertise to existing and new government customers and industry primes. Team ATA will immediately be better positioned for more engineering service opportunities with the Phase I award. Additional funding beyond Phase I is critical to realizing IMU/IRU system sales to industry primes by integrating our high performing, low-cost hardware solutions with our QUADRA algorithms to improve navigation accuracy and responsiveness. In addition to a potential Phase II, we will leverage internal investment dollars and other commercial investment dollars through links with industry.