Knowing your exact location, how you got there, and how to get back are luxuries that the military on the move doesn’t always have the option to exercise. The satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) – such a staple of modern navigation – is undeniably a technological feat but can become an exploitable weakness when manipulated by an adversary. Technologies designed to operate in GPS-denied environments are being engineered in response to the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) need to operate in areas where navigational infrastructures simply cannot exist.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Draper Laboratory will expand its role regarding the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) -- a widely used mobile communications system for the military -- as it recently won a sole-source contract with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to operate and maintain the TAK.

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. Raytheon Intelligence & Space (RI&S -- a Raytheon Technologies business) won a $17.5 million ID/IQ contract from the U.S. Army to provide improved Mode 5 and ADS-B surveillance capabilities for safe airspace engagement with its "Identification Friend or Foe" (IFF) transponders and cryptographic technologies.

LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE--SPACE SYSTEMS COMMAND. The U.S. Space Systems Command, the U.S. Space Force acquisitions and development field command, has awarded L3Harris Technologies a contract worth $120.7 million to upgrade a ground-based communications jammer used to block adversaries’ satellite transmissions.

ATLANTA. Georgia Tech Applied Research Corp. (GTARC), the nonprofit research arm of the Georgia Institute of Technology, has won a $770 million sole-source award from the U.S. Air Force to build a radar threat system simulator for military aircrew training activities.

ARLINGTON, Vir. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has made eight awards through the Defense Production Act, Title III Program -- totaling approximately $14 million -- as part of the DIU's strategy to accelerate the adoption of capable and secure small unmanned aerial systems (sUASs) for national and economic security,

Fifth-generation wireless technology, or 5G, is poised to emerge in a big way into the defense market. While the buzz surrounding the 5G technology standard has been growing in the general public in recent years, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been trailing behind commercial entities on adopting 5G due in part to both the slower pace of the DoD’s acquisition process and the hard-to-keep-up-with pace of consumer-technology refresh. However, officials at several defense communications companies agree that it’s just a matter of time before 5G-enabled military solutions are deployed and forever change the way in which the armed forces communicate.