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High Precision Radio Frequency Ranging

A state-of-the-art, point-to-point RF ranging capability that provides high precision measurement, long range capability, and a high measurement rate while maintaining low size, weight and power.

RF Ranging - Air Refueling ENSCO’s Direct Sequence Spread-Spectrum (DSSS) “round-trip time-of-flight ranging” solution provides centimeter-level accuracy with band-limited, FCC-compatible transmissions using commercial-off-the-shelf components. This technology has been field-proven on ENSCO’s custom software radio platform and can be implemented in a custom radio package, integrated into existing software-defined digital radios, or miniaturized into a chip-level package.

ENSCO’s RF ranging capability provides demonstrably higher precision and accuracy, longer range of operation, and more implementation flexibility than traditional ultra-wideband techniques. Using ENSCO-designed prototype radios, our system performance evaluations have yielded multiple centimeter-level accuracy (at one standard deviation) in various over-land and over-water real world environments. Test results from ENSCO field testing of its RF ranging technology are available on the right side of this page under "Download PDF."

High Precision Radio Frequency RF Ranging - ENSCO GeoNav

Applications for ENSCO RF Ranging Solutions

Short-range weapons guidance in GPS-denied environments
Formation or swarm navigation for unmanned autonomous systems
Warfighter-to-warfighter ranging and positioning using existing software-defined radios
RF ranging for cognitive radios
Ground truth for military system test and evaluation
Precision clock synchronization to support warm-start GPS and multi-ship operations
Station keeping for naval vessels

Benefits

Accuracy – Precise, centimeter-level accuracy with a high independent measurement report rate of more than 200 independent measurements per second (200 Hz)
Flexibility – Core ranging algorithm is implemented at digital baseband and is compatible with alternate RF carriers and available RF bandwidth, without reliance on ultra-wideband implementations
Clock-neutral – Works with conventional time references and does not require precise time synchronization or ultra-stable clocks
Increased range – Band-limited signal enables high transmit power and ranges well beyond 1 km
Reduced cost – Core components are manufactured in consumer quantities or can be implemented into existing software-defined radios
Practical size – Conventional radio design enables small size, weight and power
FCC compliance – Capable of unlicensed use in the U.S. and most of the world