Army Navigation System Achieves Milestone | Item
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — Uncertainty in military operations is never good. This can impede movement, make planning ineffective, and affect morale.
The positioning, navigation and synchronization project manager makes it his duty to eliminate the uncertainty of navigation. Product Manager Mounted Positioning Navigation and Timing focuses on this mission with mechanized units and their vehicles.
The end of 2021 marked a milestone for their efforts, as the 1,000th vehicle was equipped with the Mounted Assured Positioning Synchronization and Navigation System or MAPS, Generation I. MAPS core functions include providing GPS capabilities in environments to reach a level of overcoming with an opposing force. – to bring that certainty to the classic army expression “shoot, move, communicate”.
MAPS offers two key features. The first is the anti-jamming antenna, and the second uses AC signals which can overcome signal degradation due to weather and terrain.
The Product Manager to bring the team to this point was Lt. Col. Andrew Johnston who took over the mission which began in September 2019. Johnston’s operational branch was Field Artillery, he worked at Picatinny Arsenal, then it was part of a “work with industry”. program among other programs before coming to Aberdeen Proving Ground, making it ideal for leading a TCP-focused team.
“The indirect fires community is a big user of PNT, so I knew all about that,” Johnston said. “The importance of this ability and what it does for the fighter has not escaped me.”
“I thought I was pretty good at NFP before I got here and I learned a lot more,” Johnston said. “The seeds of where we are going were planted a long time ago, we are just lucky to harvest this.”
To date, the PM Mounted PNT team has trained more than 1,600 soldiers during the equipping course. “It’s not easy to deploy a capability across an ocean,” Johnston said. “It’s even more difficult during COVID. Everyone had to be ready and deal with the restrictions.”
“It really depends on the people, and the Mounted PNT team is really lucky to have a lot of passionate people because they’ve done a great job of leadership,” Johnston said. “And the product team under PNT Modernization was indispensable.”
Learn more about MAPS
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