TRX Systems, a leading developer of precise personnel location systems, has recently announced that the company has been awarded $750,000 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is showing its support through this award, encouraging TRX Systems to optimize and extend its TRX Sentrix Navigation System to track and navigate personnel inside rigged, man-made and natural structures such as caves and mines, and other subsurface environments.

GPS is best suited to outdoor tracking applications with clear views of the sky that can tolerate position inaccuracies sometimes on the order of tens of meters and Wi-Fi location technology though provides finer resolution location, however relies on proximity to Wi-Fi equipped structures and lacks the ability to provide elevation information. It is important to be able to track personnel and help to navigate them navigate in unfamiliar subsurface environments is imperative to the success of modern-day warfare, especially foot soldiers. Most of the locations do not have access to GPS as signals may be corrupt or unavailable or under the control of the organization monitoring the personnel. The TRX Sentrix GPS-denied algorithms can be practically applied to virtually any system supporting indoor navigation including navigation within subways, garages, and other underground environments.

The Sentrix Navigation System operates essentially in GPS-denied environments both above ground and underground such as indoors, urban centers and underground, and has been designed to track dismounted soldiers and public safety personnel conducting their duties in canyons, caves, mines and tunnels. The Sentrix System is basically a suite of sensor fusion and decision-making algorithms that derive a cohesive navigation solution from a range of complementary sensors including GPS receivers, ranging radios, compasses, gyroscopes, accelerometers, and altimeters. The navigation accuracy of the TRX Systems will be further enhanced through the DARPA program which will support testing and optimization especially in subsurface environments. The funding will also enable the Sentrix Personnel Navigation System and its sensors to be easily integrated into existing systems with sensors already in place. TRX’s Navigation Engine software, which is part of the Sentrix Tracking System, can easily be integrated with third party sensors, communication systems, and situation awareness systems that require GPS-denied location capabilities. The Sentrix Navigation Engine can also be used as a standalone software module that can be embedded in partner products.