DARPA develops ultra-small chip that realizes navigation without GPS

ByWalt Stoneburner

Although GPS is widely used, such as car navigation system, shipping route display / photographing position record of photographs, it is troublesome if the satellite for GPS is not good and can not be used. It's a good way to just say "It's the first land but I do not know the destination" and I can not hit the eyes if this is military action. Therefore, DARPA (National Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) developed a chip that supports navigation when GPS is not available.

2013/04/10 Extreme Miniaturization: Seven Devices, One Chip to Navigate without GPS
http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/04/10.aspx


The chip has been miniaturized so that the Timing & Inertial Measurement Unit (TIMU) can be placed on coins, with six inertial measurement units (IMU) consisting of three gyroscopes and three accelerometers The precision master clock is carried in.

To navigate from a certain point A to a certain point B, "Orientation"acceleration"timeThree pieces of information become important, but this chip can measure three pieces of information at the same time.

ByKevincole

The six IMUs are stratified and their spacing is about 50 microns, which is about the same as the human hair's fineness. Different functions are given to each layer, and the whole is made of silicic acid.

"Without the hardness and performance of silicic acid it would have been difficult to build such a unit with a small size," said program manager Andrei Shkel. "As a result, TIMU will have problems and robustness without problems even if we put it in various missions."

As an application, it is considered to use as a support when GPS is temporarily unavailable or limited range available, and it is expected that supplementary role of GPS is supposed to be the only role, It may be that GPS will be used for backup purposes due to performance improvement in the future.

ByEll brown