Pnt Military - While Assured Position, Navigation, and Time (A-PNT) is now a reality for all 160,000 tactical vehicles and is slowly moving toward major vehicles, there are no concrete plans to address the A-PNT issue for the remainder. Fast sailing anytime. Leonardo DRS's temporary A-PNT solution makes a difference for everyone.
Leonardo DRS has added a number of A-PNT related technologies to the existing MFOCS model of 160,000 tactical vehicles.
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Currently, the military has several PNT choices: standard GPS and a high-end solution called MAPS (Mounted Assured Precision Navigation and Timing System), which has only been deployed to a limited extent. A third, even more expensive solution for flagship vehicles called CMOSS Mounted Form Factor (CMFF) is not expected until FY26 or later.
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To fill this gap, Leonardo DRS's AC²ES (A-PNT Converged Computer-Embedded and Scalable) solution for tactical vehicles equipped with Mounted Family of Computer Systems (MFOCS) systems creates an opportunity to bridge the A-PNT gap.
In this Q&A with Leonardo DRS's Mike Stucki, Director of Business Development at Land Electronics, and Bart Blanchard, Director of Advanced Program-Integrated Systems, we discuss how AC²ES can provide immediate A-PNT capabilities through MFOCS.
Breaking Security: Let's define the "certain" aspect of A-PNT. What gives you confidence? Is it something you are trying to do or is it a real, viable and concrete solution?
Stuckey: I'd say both. In general, the United States, both civilian and military, relied heavily on GPS as a source of positioning. As we've seen, especially in our close friend threats, GPS solutions are vulnerable to jamming and spoofing—spoofing is a high-level threat because jamming is often easily detected, making spoofing even more dangerous to the American attacker.
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When we talk about certified PNT, the US Army and Marine Corps have large program offices, including the A-PNT Cross Functional Team and the PM PNT Program Office, that implement solutions beyond just GPS (Global Positioning System).
At AC²ES, we are working in the same direction, adding new technologies to MFOCS that move away from GPS alone. This includes: replacing SAASM GPS with MGUE (Military GPS User Equipment); RF delivery, instilling a more accurate internal atomic clock; Introduction of internal inertia measurement unit; Inclusion of odometry input, spoofing detection, A-PNT GUI (graphical user interface), vision navigation, and a fusion engine to receive data and analyze and verify the accuracy of all these new technologies housed in the MFOCS box.
As you can see, we're adding a ton of A-PNT-related technology to the existing MFOCS model, which is already on 160,000 tactical vehicles. Regarding the first item I mentioned, MGUE, both the Army and Air Force have publicly stated that the MGUE upgrade is 3x more accurate and 8x less prone to jamming than GPS SAASM.
So this single upgrade alone will bring attackers closer to guaranteed PNT. With the addition of the other features I mentioned, you can quickly move up the performance curve to introduce what Leonardo DRS is best known for, a very affordable solution.
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Stucki: That's right, most of our cartridge hardware. Fusion engine is software based as well as visual navigation. MFOCS is already small in size so the rest is very unique and exciting hardware from a DRS point of view. It is truly a feat of engineering to be able to combine all these additional hardware into a single package.
This gives the fighter an affordable A-PNT solution, integrated into the system they already use, like I said, 160,000 tactical vehicles; There is no need to modify the hardware box or upgrade cabling and integration kits, which is a large part of the logistics cost of any military program.
Branchard: A unique feature of our solution over what we've seen others offer is that not only does it use a box already in the vehicle, but we also provide a scalable, customized set of options. Different military vehicles have different performance needs on different budgets, and depending on how many A-PNT-related components you need to add to get the performance you need at the right price, the AC²ES solution provides many options for Certified-PNT.
We intentionally designed our system with multiple plug-and-play modules so that a specific configuration can be built to meet the Army's needs for a specific platform.
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BREAKING PROTECTION: You seem to be describing the Modular Open System Architecture (MOSA), which the Army is recommending for its ground vehicles and future vertical lift programs.
Stucky: That's right. There is MOSA and MAPS and now the military is moving to CMOSS Mounted Form Factor (CMFF) which will be a 3U VPX box with card sets. And one of these sets of cards will be the A-PNT card.
Leonardo DRS continues our development and will be a player in the development of CMFF. The beauty of AC²ES is that it is a staged solution until CMFF is ready. The Army expects initial operational capability for the CMFF no earlier than FY26. At this point, only key leaders and vehicles with key abilities are affected.
The AC²ES offering, available today from Leonardo DRS, is designed as a bridging solution to what the Army classifies as Tier 2 and Tier 3 vehicles. Unlike Key Leader vehicles, they are not eligible for the Army's Field Plan for CMFF A-PNT. A possibility even if these vehicles are already equipped with MFOCS equipment. So without a solution like AC²ES they lack location, navigation and synchronization.
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Branchard: The Army has a short-term plan to put A-PNT in some vehicles through MAPS. Their long term plan is to put CMOS into mainstream vehicles. It's unclear what their long-term plan is to fix the problem for all vehicles. They don't have the budget to take this leading edge A-PNT technology and distribute it to the rest of the fleet. This is a gap they are still trying to fill, so we focus more on the benefits AC²ES offers to fighters who do not receive special, more expensive A-PNT solutions.
Stuckey: Our discussion with both the PM PNT and the cross-functional team is that the threat exists today. They know that CMFF is a long term plan and they have a long field plan.
However, today there is an affordable, tailor-made solution that can be quickly installed in MFOCS to provide A-PNT troops to protect them, pre-launch CMFF.
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The US Marine Corps also sees this as a problem and is in discussions with us. They are ready to go out in the RO22 timeframe with tests to validate the Leonardo DRS MFOCS A-PNT solution. We see the military starting to discuss the same type of testing. During the competitive Ota phase of the MAPS Gen II program, the system demonstrated its ability to combat positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) threats. .
Along with Collins Aerospace's NavHub-100 navigation system and multi-sensor antenna system, MAPS Gen II offers advanced PNT capabilities for manned and unmanned ground vehicles.
According to the company, the system can "support multi-domain operations and mitigate the evolving electronic threats that warfighters face today and will face in the future."
Collins' NavFusion technology also helps MAPS Gen II deliver highly integrated and precise navigation solutions against peer and intimate threats.
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The system also works well with the Collins Aerospace PRC-162 backpack radio under the US Army Joint All Domain Command and Control program.
Ryan Bunge, vice president and general manager of Collins Aerospace Communication, Navigation and Guidance, said, "Real-world testing in the MAPS competition phase has proven that MAPS Gen II raises the bar for reliable PNT performance when GPS is challenged or denied." .
"Collins' long history of guidance and mobility has helped us bring MAPS Gen II into production as quickly as possible, and our world-class manufacturing capabilities will continue to provide the best protection available to America's warfighters."
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