Story ID: 436
New Inertial Nav System Solves GPS Vulnerability
By: Chris Pocock
Caption: Flare Bright has developed a small new inertial navigation system that can substitute for vulnerable GPS receivers.
Word Count: 175
Worried about GPS jamming or spoofing? This week at the 2023 Paris Airshow, British company Flare Bright is showing its new inertial navigation system (INS) enhancement device that the company claims makes an INS more accurate thanks to machine-learning software. Unlike GPS, INS does not rely on radio signals; however, as airborne time and distance increase, INS's positional error increases.
To mitigate that issue with INS, Flare Bright's augmentation system—which consists of hardware and model-based software that plus into an existing INS—uses aircraft data, intermittent GPS signals (when available), and other information not commonly used for navigation to recalibrate the INS position. This results in a small size and low weight unit that makes it especially useful for small uncrewed aerial vehicles.
It has been flight-tested on Flare Bright’s own 1.2-meter wingspan fixed-wing drone. The U.S. Department of Defense, UK Ministry of Defence, and some major defense primes are current customers for the company's INS.