MicroPilot, a manufacturer of autopilot systems for unmanned aerial systems (UAS), has selected Spirent Communications to help enhance the location accuracy and positioning resilience of its devices.
The MicroPilot engineering teams are using Spirent’s GSS9000 GNSS simulator to quickly verify their designs to offer end users the most accurate positioning regardless of their location. To deliver this performance, they are using multiple-antenna systems and require a simulator that can support these features and provide high speed simulation.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are heavily dependent on satellite-based positioning technology, such as GPS, so testing of the vehicle’s positioning capabilities must be thorough, rigorous and broad, to ensure that as wide a range as possible of potential real-world conditions has been applied. This is only possible with a test program that incorporates lab-based simulation.
As the demand for drones, UASs and other unmanned vehicles is increasing, manufacturers are looking to create better performing systems with shorter development cycles. The use of Spirent GNSS simulator not only reduces the time and cost of testing, but also allows for a wide range of conditions, including GPS spoofing and jamming, to be tested repeatedly and rigorously.
This GSS9000 GPS/GNSS simulator is the ultimate GNSS/GPS test solution, giving the very best in performance, flexibility and capability. It can be used to verify the most demanding applications, where sub-millimeter accuracy is needed, or if systems have full mobility (six degrees of freedom) or accurate high dynamic (1000Hz update rate) needs. True hardware-in-the-loop applications (via acceptance of external vehicle motion data in real time) can also be tested.
With GPS signal usage - and interference - growing, the GSS9000 is also an effective tool to help increase the resilience of GPS receivers to withstand deliberate or accidental jamming. The GSS9000 simulator has been reviewed and granted security approval by the GPS Directorate.
