The visual-aided inertial navigation system (VINS), developed by Inertial Labs, allows aircrafts to maintain precise flight paths in the absence of a reliable GPS or GNSS signal.
The debut comes with a rise in GPS signal spoofing and jamming in North America and much of Western Europe, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). With up to 700 GPS spoofing and jamming incidents occurring worldwide every day, this has an impact on both military and commercial activities.
The last three months of 2024 saw almost 800 instances of GPS interference in Lithuanian airspace alone, indicating that events are concentrated around combat zones. The emergency services and communications industries, which likewise depend on exact time and geolocation, are also impacted.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can complete extremely long-distance missions in the most GNSS-difficult situations because of VINS. By using the Perspective and Point (PnP) principles to match patterns from an onboard camera (day or infrared) with satellite imagery-derived Maxar Precision3D maps, VINS employs a powerful 3D vision-based positioning program from Maxar Raptor to determine a vehicle’s absolute 3D position.
VINS has shown that it can maintain its flight route in GNSS-denied situations by keeping its horizontal position within 35 m, vertical position within 5 m, and desired velocity within 0.9 m/s of its actual location and velocity.
It is also able to hold heading to within 1 degree and pitch/roll to within 0.1 degree. With GNSS enabled, it is able to maintain a horizontal position of 1 m, a sub-2 m vertical position and a velocity of 0.03 m/s, with a heading accuracy of 0.1 degrees and a pitch/roll of within 0.03 degrees.
The system is designed for operation at low altitudes. The comprehensive modular system incorporates processing and sensor modules, a GNSS or CRPA antenna plus an air-data computer and digital windspeed sensor for operation with both fixed-wing and multi-rotor UAVs.
A commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) radio is an optional addition to VINS that can be used for data transmission and to provide absolute position in situations where GPS is not available. There is also an M-code/SAASM GNSS receiver and an Iridium LEO GNSS receiver.
The second-generation RSR Transcoder with GPS full constellation simulator, which VIAVI also unveiled last week, is intended to provide guaranteed PNT for military operations conducted in degraded or disrupted space operating environments (D3SOE).
The Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are co-hosting the 2025 Joint Navigation Conference, which will take place from June 2–5 in the Greater Cincinnati Area and feature demonstrations of both VINS and the RSR Transcoder v2.0. These will be on exhibit in the VIAVI (#406) and Inertial Labs (#430) displays, respectively.
VIAVI and its Inertial Labs Division Will Also Deliver Three Presentations:
- “3D Vision-based 3D Vision-Based Positioning for Autonomous Aerial Platform Navigation and Human-in-the-Loop Reconnaissance Mission” (presented with Maxar): Monday, June 2 at 1:50 PM ET
- “Anti-Jam/Spoof Phased Array Antenna”: Wednesday, June 4 at 10:50 AM ET
- “Retrofitting At-Risk GPS Defense Equipment with a Multi-Orbit LEO and GEO Clock System for Resilient PNT Services”: Wednesday, June 4 at 11:30 AM ET
Leadership Comments
“VINS and the RSR Transcoder are truly groundbreaking when it comes to assured PNT in GPS-denied environments,” said Doug Russell, Senior Vice President, Aerospace & Defense, VIAVI. “Through strategic acquisitions, we’re uniquely able to harness resilient timing from Jackson Labs and accurate navigation from Inertial Labs, and implement these with intelligent sensor fusion, holdover and dead reckoning to ensure reliability and security as well as ease of operation.”
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