BAE Systems has won a $16 million contract from Collins Aerospace to outfit the Navy’s carrier landing system with an encrypted, harder-to-jam GPS receiver.
The upgrade targets JPALS, the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System, which brings aircraft down onto carrier decks through bad weather and zero visibility. BAE’s DIGAR-500M Digital GPS Anti-Jam Receiver replaces legacy Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module hardware and adds M-Code signal processing.
Handling both signal types at once matters because carrier air wings still operate a mix of older SAASM jets and newer M-Code aircraft. A single receiver lets a deck recover either kind.
DIGAR relies on digital beamforming, steering as many as 24 beams at GPS satellites while nulling jammers on nearby frequencies. The unit guards the L1 and L2 bands and pairs with four- to seven-element controlled reception pattern antennas, per BAE’s datasheet.
Molly O’Brien, the company’s program manager for Airborne GPS, said the award is a milestone in modernizing a mission-critical system that supports safe, precise recoveries aboard carriers in all conditions.
BAE says the receiver family has flown on fixed-wing aircraft, rotorcraft and uncrewed aircraft, and has been tested on naval vessels. Its military GPS line is built in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The deal arrives as GPS users confront steady jamming and spoofing, and as the Navy wants its precision approach equipment to keep working inside heavy radio-frequency disruption.
