IEEE Features ASPIN Lab Navigation Research in GPS-Denied Environments

The July 2022 cover issue of IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine features research by Ohio State ECE Prof. Kassas, his students, and Chiawei Lee (Edwards Air Force Base).

The focus of their work, "I Am Not Afraid of the GPS Jammer: Resilient Navigation via Signals of Opportunity in GPS-Denied Environments," presents the first published experimental results evaluating the efficacy of radio simultaneous localization and mapping (radio SLAM) in a real GPS-denied environment. 

Kassas said experiments took place at Edwards Air Force Base, Mojave Desert, California, USA. During NAVFEST, the GPS was intentionally blocked by jamming-to-signal (J/S) ratio as high as 90 dB. The article evaluated the timing of two cellular long-term evolution (LTE) transmitters located in the jammed environment, showing timing stability over 95 minutes of GPS jamming. The article also presented navigation results showcasing a ground vehicle traversing a trajectory of about 5 km in 180 seconds in the GPS-jammed environment. The GPS-IMU system drifted from the vehicle’s ground truth trajectory, resulting in a position root mean-squared error (RMSE) of 238 m. In contrast, the radio SLAM approach, with signals from a single cellular LTE transmitter whose position was poorly known (an initial uncertainty on the order of several kilometers), achieved a position RMSE of 32 m.