Uncrewed Systems Technology 047 l Aergility ATLIS l AI focus l Clevon 1 UGV l Geospatial insight l Intergeo 2022 report l AUSA 2022 report I Infinity fuel cell l BeeX A.IKANBILIS l Propellers focus I Phoenix Wings Orca

74 L6, GLONASS G1/G2/G3, Galileo E1/ E5ab/E6 and BeiDou B1/B2ab/B3. Also supported are SBAS including WAAS for North America, EGNOS in Europe, MSAS in Japan, and GAGAN in India. Next, the AJ977XF triple-band antenna features anti-jam technology by way of a stacked antenna phased array. “That creates a null [deaf] pattern in the antenna’s radiation for all azimuths and elevation angles ranging between the horizon and about 15 º ,” explained Julien Hautcoeur. “So the AJ977XF’s element attenuates – with a typically negative gain of -20dB – the in-band and out- of-band GNSS radio spectrum in the aforementioned range. “The AJ977XF will therefore keep providing a usable GNSS signal in the presence of a ground-based 600 W jammer 100 m or further away.” Both the SSL990XF and AJ977XF use Tallysman’s eXtended Filtering technology to strongly mitigate out-of- band signals from 500 to 3000 MHz. Lastly, the TW5390 smart GNSS antenna (from Tallysman division Tallymatics) comes with IP-network and L-band augmentation service capabilities via integration with u-blox’s F9R GNSS receiver and DS9 L-band receiver modules. These enable PPP- RTK corrections in NMEA format over an RS-485 interface to ensure accuracy within 6 cm. “The TW5390 is ideal for UGVs and some larger UAVs,” Hautcoeur said. “Its GNSS coordinates are corrected through the u-blox PointPerfect augmentation service, via either L-band satellite or IP messages. It also has built-in inertial sensors that provide additional motion corrections to position estimates.” Exail (previously iXblue) attended Intergeo to showcase a number of its newest products for navigation and georeferencing. Taking centre stage was the UmiX U5 FOG IMU, the company’s first to be size-optimised for navigation applications. “It’s available for order at the beginning of 2023. It provides rotation and acceleration measurement data at up to 10 kHz, being built on with a miniaturised FOG with new electronics, as well as our new vibrating quartz accelerometers, also made in-house,” said Marie-Lise Duplaquet. The U5’s FOG operates over a dynamic range of ±490 º /s (with its accelerometer’s dynamic range at ±30 g ) and has an angular random walk within 0.01 º / √ hour and a bias repeatability of better than 0.01 º /hour. The IMU weighs just under 770 g, measures 88.9 mm in diameter and is 75 mm tall. It consumes 4 W at ambient temperature (up to 7 W) and interfaces over a 21-pin micro-D rectangular connector as standard, with serial RS- 422 ports. The company also exhibited its Atlans A7, a 2.9 kg INS for land and aerial georeferencing systems that features RTK- and SBAS-enabled corrections for its Septentrio GNSS receiver, as well as its Delph INS post-processing software for fusing and computing mapping data from key land, air, hydrographic and rail navigation products (including geotagging of Lidar and synthetic aperture radar data for detailed 3D maps and models). Inertial Labs is developing an INS that uses a FOG IMU as an external source to perform gyro-compassing, and hence understanding a vehicle’s true heading. “It could be used as a pointing device for zero-velocity updates in GNSS- denied environments, where dual- antenna GNSSs can’t get updates,” explained Jamie Marraccini. “Currently there are no low-cost gyrocompasses available on the market, but with our devices already supporting external aiding data updates, and now direct integrations, we can simply use the gyrocompass directly or indirectly to perform the mission’s required gyro- compassing updates.” That means for example that a FOG could be placed on a ground installation such as a military turret or a robotic refuelling, or recharging arm station, and a UAV carrying out flights in the area could land, take an update to find north again using the FOG as a reference point, then take off and continue on its mission. “As well as having engineers who knew how to do this kind of integration, it took time to find a suitable FOG technology in price-performance terms, to be able to offer this new kind of IMU solution,” Marraccini said. “There are plenty of FOG and RLG IMUs, but this one will fit a certain price model.” At present, the FOG model used is the IMU-FI-200C, but Inertial Labs plans to spend 4 to 6 weeks testing its own INS with external aiding data from the IMU-FI- 200C to verify how accurately the IMU- FI-200C can measure and output true headings without using GNSS. Based on preliminary test results, the first generation of Inertial Labs’ gyro- compassing system will measure true heading and true north with about 0.5 º accuracy. Pending the successful conclusion of those tests, the gyro-compass will be released as a standalone instrument in February 2023. December/January 2023 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Exail’s UmiX U5 FOG IMU