The theater NavComm concept

This paper describes a satellite-based system that integrates mobile communication and navigation capabilities. The NavComm system combines robust regional navigation and mobile communications, while ensuring backward compatibility with the existing global positioning system (GPS). The combination of navigation and communication services enables integration of satellites, user terminals, protection, and security measures. This follows commercial trends of integrating GPS receivers with cellular telephones and provides an opportunity for synergy with commercial mobile satcom designs. The integrated NavComm services can improve the situational awareness of authorized users by means of secure navigation, position reporting, paging, messaging, and mobile Internet services. The navigation services also improve through faster acquisition, increased robustness, differential accuracy, faster GPS integrity link, and over-the-air-rekeying.