Resilience-Aware Human-on-the Loop Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Equipment

OUSD (R&E) MODERNIZATION PRIORITY: Cybersecurity; Network Command, Control and Communications; Autonomy TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Sensors; Electronics; Space Platform; Information Systems The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with the Announcement. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws. Please direct questions to the Air Force SBIR/STTR HelpDesk: usaf.team@afsbirsttr.us. OBJECTIVE: Identify and develop resilience conformance framework and human factors applied to Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) user equipment, PNT systems of systems, integrated PNT receivers, and PNT source components such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) chipsets. DESCRIPTION: With the automation and multi-level resilience of prevent, respond, and recover functions involved in Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) equipment, human presence is almost inevitable in such systems. The vast majority of PNT services mandate the presence of end users with supervisory roles (Human-on-the-Loop), such as resilience level settings, risk tolerances, budgets, dual-purpose civil and military applications and interferences in situations unfamiliar to the autonomous PNT equipment. Hence, it is vital to understand how this presence affects the application performance requirements of accuracy, availability, integrity, continuity, and/or coverage and expected behaviors in resilient PNT equipment at the design phase. Moreover, this understanding supports a radical change in the design paradigm: can we design autonomous PNT equipment that utilizes human presence to improve the resilience guarantee or aid in situations of higher degrees of uncertainty? The SBIR topic focuses on answering this question for future resilience-proofing and is broadly applicable across civil and military PNT sources; e.g. GNSS-dependent time and frequency sources and receivers. Specifically, prospective options shall examine the human role in guaranteeing resilience and/or security when PNT equipment is susceptible to jamming and spoofing attacks. The technical challenges the government is following on this topic are threefold: i) understanding human behavior; ii) developing conformance frameworks for PNT resilience agnostic to all critical infrastructure, all applications, all PNT sources or services, and all threats; and iii) synthesizing expected behaviors and outcomes for resilient PNT user equipment. Offerors are encouraged to work with Military Grade User Equipment prime contractors and developers to help ensure applicability of their efforts and begin work towards technology transition. PHASE I: Develop a multi-level conformance framework for PNT resilience, starting from: i) underlying GNSS chipsets for fundamental PNT measurements; moving to ii) an integrated receiver, including a GNSS chipset, PNT processor, and clock/oscillator; and finally applying to iii) systems of systems approaches; e.g. an integrated receiver, an anti-jamming antenna, any other connected devices used to deliver PNT data, and human-on-the-loop. Conduct an analysis and use-case simulations; e.g. for application {X}, subject to threat {Y}, technology/solution {Z} can provide timing at Resilience Level 3 with an accuracy threshold of 1.8 microseconds 99.9% of the time, and a post-threat recovery time of 80 seconds 95% of the time to demonstrate how the human power of inductive reasoning and ability to provide context, particularly during an attack, affect overall PNT resilience and/or security guarantee. PHASE II: Design, implement, integrate, and test a live, synthetic, blended and extendable digital twin and virtual platform that facilitates trade-offs with respect to the impact that human-on-the-loop has on the resilience of PNT user equipment with varying levels of autonomy and resilience. Assess implementation complexity of increasing resilience along the signal processing and PNT solution generation chain. Cooperate with one or more GNSS receiver manufacturers and military navigation system integrators. Demonstrate a non-resilient chipset (a chipset that does not meet any resilience level as defined in Phase I) but integrate it in a receiver in a way that that will ultimately result in its resilience. Testing should include validation and verification of manufacturer specifications and end-user requirements. Manufacturers should test against their product's specifications, while end-users should test against their application requirements. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: In cooperative efforts with end-users, operate systems-of-systems to increase resilience levels through the design, integration, configuration, and deployment of their systems, utilizing laboratory and field tests in representative operational and GNSS-denied environments. Evaluate transition opportunities for utilization in approved Government-civilian applications. REFERENCES: 1. National R&D Plan for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Resilience, Jan 2021; 2. Presidential Policy Directive -- Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience/PPD-21 KEYWORDS: resilient PNT user equipment; human on the loop; resilient conformance framework; virtual platform; digital engineering; integrated receiver; GNSS chipset; clock/oscillator; PNT sources