Military Applications

Applications
Title	Military Applications
Author(s)	GMV.
Level	Medium
Year of Publication	2011

As mentioned before the first GNSS systems (GPS and GLONASS) were developed for military purposes. Still today the military applications are one of the drivers for these systems.

For instance GPS makes available 2 services: the Precise Positioning Service and the Standard Positioning Service. The Precise Positioning Service is encrypted and is only available to the US military and its allies.

Overview of Military Applications

The military applications are considered safety critical applications and use the Precise Positioning Service, which is a robust and encrypted signals, able to deal with jamming attacks.

The GPS satellites incorporate others sensors able to perform nuclear detonation detections. This service encompasses an optical sensor (Y-sensor), an X-ray sensor, a dosimeter, and an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) sensor (W-sensor), and is part of the U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System.

Military Navigation

The satellite navigation is applied to military missions for navigation purposes in enemy territories, and are especially important in absence of light missions, during the night. The military forces rely on GPS over conventional compasses, in order to obtain an accurate positioning of their own units, as well as the enemy's forces positions and the locations of enemy's facilities or installations. These positions coordinates can be acquired and distributed to other allied forces, in order to enhance the ground awareness picture.

Satellite navigation is also used to plan and track the movements of convoys and to operations of search and rescue of injured soldiers, with considerable reduction of response time.

Detailed information about Military Navigation can be found here.

Target Acquisition

Satellite navigation has become very important for military target acquisition operations, reconnaissance, and weapon guidance systems.

Tracking of potential targets before they are declared hostile, is a requirement in modern military operations. A number of military systems use GNSS information to track the movement of these potential targets. This data is also collected to feed situation awareness systems and weapon systems.

Conventional weapon systems such as smart bombs and guided missiles use the acquired tracking information, enhanced by GPS receivers information and other guidance systems.

Detailed information about Target Acquisition can be found here.