Handheld Celestial Navigation System

Military navigation users employ a variety of systems for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). Of these systems, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has proven itself to be the most ubiquitous, useful, and universally available system providing a precise PNT solution. Given the fragility of GPS signals by means of jamming, and/or spoofing, the GPS denied environment is a real threat and requires alternative inertial aiding/updating sources of information to correct system drift. Celestial navigation is one such alternative that has been employed, but suffers from large form factors. EngeniusMicro and Kearfott Corporation propose miniaturizing the Kearfott Celestial Location & Attitude System (CLAS) and developing a reduced Size Weight and Power (SWaP) Micro-CLAS. This development effort would take a ready design in the CLAS and investigate the individual pieces to shrink not just the electronics but also the entire package allowing for a handheld celestial navigation system. The Phase I of the effort will investigate the feasibility of this approach.