Leonardo DRS has added a number of A-PNT-related technologies into the existing MFoCS form factor already resident in 160,000 tactical vehicles.
Today the Army has few choices for PNT: standard GPS and the higher-end solution called MAPS (Mounted Assured Precision Navigation and Timing System) that is only in limited deployment. A third, even-more-expensive solution for key-leader vehicles called CMOSS Mounted Form Factor (CMFF) isn’t expected until FY26 or later.
To address that gap, Leonardo DRS’ AC²ES (A-PNT Converged Computer-Embedded and Scalable) solution for tactical vehicles equipped with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems (MFoCS) creates a bridging capability to fill the gap in A-PNT availability.
In this Q&A with Leonardo DRS’ Mike Stucki, director of business development for Land Electronics, and Bart Blanchard director, Advanced Programs-Integrated Systems, we discuss how AC²ES can provide immediate A-PNT capabilities through MFoCS.
Breaking Defense: Let’s define the ‘assured’ aspect of A-PNT. What makes it assured? Is this something you’re driving to or is it an actual, viable, assured solution?
Leonardo DRS’ Mike Stucki, director of business development for Land Electronics.
Stucki: I would say both. The United States in general, both civilian and military, has relied heavily on GPS as the source of positioning. As we’ve seen especially in our near-peer threats, GPS solutions have become susceptible to both jamming and spoofing—spoofing being a higher-level threat because jamming can often be more easily identified, making spoofing more dangerous for the U.S. warfighter.
When we talk about Assured PNT, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corp have large program offices to include the A-PNT Cross Functional Team and the program office PM PNT that are both working with and fielding solutions that go beyond just GPS (Global Positioning System).
With AC²ES we’re working along that same track by adding new technologies to MFoCS that move away from just GPS itself. This includes: the MGUE (Military GPS User Equipment) to replace the SAASM GPS; RF distribution, the insertion of a more accurate, internal atomic clock; introduction of an internal inertial measurement unit; odometry input, spoofing detection, A-PNT GUI (Graphical User Interface), Vision Navigation, and the insertion of a fusion engine to pull in data and analyze and verify the accuracy of all these new technologies being put inside of the MFoCS box.
As you can see, we are adding a plethora of A-PNT-related technologies into the existing MFoCS form factor already resident in 160,000 tactical vehicles. Regarding the first piece I mentioned, the MGUE, both the Army and Air Force have publicly stated that the upgrade to the MGUE is 3X more accurate and 8X less susceptible to jamming than the SAASM GPS.
So that single upgrade alone is going to move warfighters closer toward an Assured PNT. And with the addition of the other items I mentioned, you can quickly move up the performance curve to introduce what Leonardo DRS is best known for, which is a very affordable solution.
Breaking Defense: So this sounds like mainly hardware upgrades with some software improvements.
Stucki: Correct, the majority of our insertion is hardware. The fusion engine is software based, as is vision navigation. The rest is hardware, which is very unique and exciting from a DRS standpoint because the MFoCS itself already has a small form factor. To be able to add all this additional hardware in the same packaging is truly an engineering feat.
This gives the warfighter an affordable A-PNT solution integrated into a system that they’re already used to using it in, as I said, 160,000 tactical vehicles; there’s no need to modify the hardware box or retrofit the cabling and integration kits, which is a huge part of the logistics cost for any Army program.
Branchard: One of the things that’s unique about our solution from what we’ve seen other people offering is not only does it use the box that’s already on the vehicle, we also provide a scalable, tailorable set of options. Different Army vehicles have different performance needs with different budgets, and depending on how many A-PNT-related elements you want to stack together to get the performance you want at the proper price point, the AC²ES solution provides a multitude of options for Assured-PNT.
We’ve purposely designed our system with many plug-and-play modules so that we can build a particular configuration that meets the Army’s needs for a particular platform.
Breaking Defense: It sounds like you’re describing Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA), which is something the Army is prescribing for its ground vehicles and Future Vertical Lift programs.
Stucki: Correct. There’s MOSA and MAPS, and now the Army is moving toward the CMOSS Mounted Form Factor (CMFF), which is going to be a 3U VPX box with card sets. And one of those card sets will be an A-PNT card.
Leonardo DRS is, of course, continuing our development and will be a player in the development of CMFF. The beauty of AC²ES is that it is the bridging solution until CMFF is ready. The Army expects Initial Operational Capability for CMFF no sooner than FY26. And right now that’s only for key-leader and key-capability vehicles.
The AC²ES offering available today from Leonardo DRS was designed as a bridging solution for what the Army classifies as Tier 2 and Tier 3 vehicles. Unlike the key-leader vehicles, these may not be eligible in the Army fielding plan for the CMFF A-PNT capability, even though these vehicles already have MFoCS hardware. So without a solution like AC²ES they’re without Assured Position, Navigation, and Timing.
Breaking Defense: Why does the Army feel that they can do without an interim A-PNT solution? Is it Congress, other budgetary constraints?
Branchard: The Army has a near-term plan to put some A-PNT on some vehicles via MAPS. Their long-term plan is to put CMOS on key-leader vehicles. It’s not clear what their long-term plan is to solve the solution for all the vehicles. They don’t have budgets to take that key-leader A-PNT technology and distribute it across the rest of the fleet. That is a gap that they’re still trying to address, so we are getting a lot of attention based on the benefits that AC²ES provides for warfighters not getting the special, more expensive A-PNT solutions.
Breaking Defense: Final thoughts?
Stucki: The discussion that we’ve had with both the PM PNT and the Cross-Functional Team is that the threat exists today. They are aware CMFF is the long-term plan and have an extended fielding plan in place.
However, there is a solution, an affordable, tailorable solution today, prior to the launch of CMFF, that could be quickly installed into MFoCS to give A-PNT to soldiers to protect them today.
The U.S. Marine Corps also sees this as an issue and is in discussion with us. They’re ready to move out in the FY22 timeframe with testing to validate the Leonardo DRS MFoCS A-PNT solution. We’re also seeing the Army begin to discuss the same kind of testing.
