MAGNAV: The Military's GPS Failover Plan

 

OK, they're not quite describing it as going back to the compass and sextant, and there's still room for a lot of fine tuning, but the Earth's magnetic field is key to how guidance systems are being developed to overcome the vulnerabilities of America's GPS infrastructure if ever targeted for jamming, spoofing, or outright destruction by an enemy.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a33512412...

sextant sight reduction arithmetic

I hope that they teach sextant sight reduction arithmetic on paper unless they have EMP resistant calculators.

Just how many???

minke wrote:

I hope that they teach sextant sight reduction arithmetic on paper unless they have EMP resistant calculators.

Do you believe can do anything without their smartphone or tablet???
Other than us old farts!

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Nuvi 2797LMT, DriveSmart 50 LMT-HD, Using Windows 10. DashCam A108C with GPS.

I'll be glad to loan them my

I'll be glad to loan them my Astralab.

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

HMMM

I know I have a slide rule around here someplace guess I could loan it out.

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garry

I always keep a record in cuneiform

Melaqueman wrote:
minke wrote:

I hope that they teach sextant sight reduction arithmetic on paper unless they have EMP resistant calculators.

Do you believe can do anything without their smartphone or tablet???
Other than us old farts!

I always keep a record in cuneiform.

Out With The New, In With The Old?

garry1p wrote:

I know I have a slide rule around here someplace guess I could loan it out.

By now it's been decades since I last held my circular slide rule, but I knew there had to be a good reason to keep it. I just need to unearth wherever it's ended up. Coincidentally, a nice, hard leather cased "regular" slide rule of my Dad's was in my hands in the past 48 hours as I found a new cubby hole for it in my office.

That said, I have serious doubts that anything hand operated by a human will be fast or reliable enough for high speed aerial guidance systems if our GPS system becomes suddenly unreliable or missing. The stated accuracy of current magnetic-based guidance is only likely to get even better as the technology advances and insufficient/missing map info acquired, unless another technological approach comes along and overtakes it.

The explanation I was hoping to see and didn't would have explained how they plan to track and allow for changes in Earth's magnetic fields as movement within the molten iron core shifts them around.

I assume

Bayou Navigator wrote:

The explanation I was hoping to see and didn't would have explained how they plan to track and allow for changes in Earth's magnetic fields as movement within the molten iron core shifts them around.

I assume that this would be handled with continuous updating of the data. This has to be done now (in a different form) with the GPS satellites, so the basic issue is not really much different.

- Tom -

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XXL540, GO LIVE 1535, GO 620

Is spoofing our magnetic field far fetched?

Bayou Navigator wrote:
garry1p wrote:

...

That said, I have serious doubts that anything hand operated by a human will be fast or reliable enough for high speed aerial guidance systems if our GPS system becomes suddenly unreliable or missing.
...

I don't know if pilots in the US are permitted to use GPS for landing. For longer range navigating (<200 miles) they have used something called VOR. Things called OMNIs have been used for landing. If we don't dismantle these systems then absence of GPS will be an inconvenience.

In the middle of the ocean navigating by magnetic fields (like migrating birds!) may make sense.

I am under the impression that during the cold war we towed magnetometers behind planes flying west of the Elbe. IIRC I read that they could detect individual tanks 50 miles away. Is spoofing our magnetic field far fetched?

Uh oh...

If GPS goes down, I'd probably get lost going to the market. Well that's an exaggeration, but I realized early on with GPS that we become dependent on the technology and as we rely less on our own innate sense of direction, it atrophies.

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"141 could draw faster than he, but Irving was looking for 143..."