Title: Embedded PNT Module for Distributed Radar Sensing: Year 1 Status
Presenting Author: Patrick Rennich
Organization: Aloft Sensing, Inc.
Co-Author(s): Brian Pollard, Lauren Wye

Abstract:
Aloft Sensing, Inc. (Aloft) has developed a patent-pending radar-based PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing) technique to provide micron-level positioning, milli-degree orientation, and picosecond timing (“AloftPNT”). This high level of precision is required for coherent alignment of complex radar imagery across distributed sensors to realize emerging techniques like multi-baseline polarimetric InSAR (PolInSAR) and tomographic SAR (TomoSAR). These techniques are critical for NASA’s surface topography and vegetation (STV) efforts to achieve accurate 3-D volumetric reconstructions of surface vegetation and other structures. The PNT information must be known in real-time for full exploitation of the coherent sensing potential and in support of the onboard processing needed for reduced latency and timely product generation. Under a NASA ESTO DSI award, Aloft is developing, implementing, and testing a prototype PNT module that delivers high-precision PNT solutions in real-time. The resulting custom-built digital hardware, combined with efficiently embedded innovative algorithms, enables distributed interferometric radar formations to support new STV science investigations and provide low-latency, high-resolution, high-accuracy products. The PNT module can also serve as radar sensor in its own right, as well as support other sensing instruments in need of rapid and accurate relative positioning information. This presentation describes the current state of Aloft’s PNT module development and demonstrates, via initial field data, the performance achieved by the AloftPNT techniques.