The first practical undersea equivalent of the land-based global positioning system (GPS) is being developed by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and contractor BAE Systems.

Named POSYDON, an acronym for the "Positioning System for Deep Ocean Navigation" program, the world's first global undersea GPS will be for U.S. Navy use only. Sorry, John Q. Public, for now at least.

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POSYDON will allow U.S. Navy submarines, submersibles and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to better navigate and be better concealed by the murky ocean depths while remaining hidden from their Chinese and Russian foes.

POSYDON aims to develop an undersea system that is omnipresent; is capable of robust positioning, navigation and timing independent of GPS and inertial navigation. By using a small number of long-range acoustic sources, an attack or nuclear missile submarine will be able to obtain continuous, accurate positioning without surfacing for a GPS fix.

Phase I of the program focuses on accurately modeling the signal propagation channel while Phase II focuses on developing the signal waveform. A complete positioning system is scheduled to be demonstrated in Phase III.

BAE is developing technology that relies on long-range acoustic sources at fixed locations in the oceans. Using POSYDON, submarines and other US Navy undersea weapons will determine their location by ranging to the acoustic signals from several of the fixed underwater sources.

POSYDON also removes the need for a submarine to either surface or ascend to a shallow depth to communicate with the outside world, a dangerous action in wartime.

BAE Systems has over 40 years of experience developing underwater active and passive acoustic systems, said Joshua Niedzwiecki, BAE Systems director of Sensor Processing and Exploitation.

"We'll use this same technology to revolutionize undersea navigation for the POSYDON program, by selecting and demonstrating acoustic underwater GPS sources and corresponding small-form factor receivers."

TagsU.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, POSYDON, Positioning System for Deep Ocean Navigation, GPS, U.S. Navy