Meet Landshield®: Raytheon UK’s next-generation anti-jammer sees surge in demand

We all rely on the Global Positioning System, and not just for maps and navigation.

GPS is key to much of the UK’s critical national infrastructure. From financial systems to military applications, our reliance on the information that GPS provides has grown.

And when military systems rely on the signals to complete their missions, defending GPS becomes crucial. This year, Raytheon UK achieved the milestone of having 15,000 anti-jamming systems supplied and in service around the world on air, sea and land platforms.

“Never before has having a fully secured GPS system been so integral to operational success,” said Rory Chamberlain, business development executive at Raytheon UK. “Our reliance on these systems is too high to not take maximum precautions in securing the data they’re providing, so we are stepping up to the important challenge of meeting this demand.”

Raytheon UK has over 20 years’ experience in developing, producing and supplying a suite of anti-jamming products at its state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Glenrothes and Livingston, Scotland. They include the Advanced Digital Antenna Product, the GPS Anti-Jam System as well as the next-generation Landshield® and Landshield Plus, a new and compact GPS anti-jam antenna system that protects its signal within the electromagnetic spectrum.

“Landshield is a low size, weight and power device that defends GPS systems and deters jamming and spoofing attempts,” Chamberlain said. “Although it has been designed to meet the primary function of nulling the effects of a full range of hostile jammers and spoofers, it also has the distinct advantage of alerting users to the location and type of interfering signals.”

Through locating these signals, Landshield provides critical information to the user allowing them to maintain an operational advantage in GPS-contested environments. It has also been designed with utility at its core. Being the size of a hockey puck and weighing only 1 kilogram, Landshield and Landshield Plus integrate easily on both a wide range of large platforms and small weapons systems.

All these factors have combined to see an increased demand for Raytheon UK’s suite of anti-jamming technologies, evidenced by the recent award of a 10-year indefinite-delivery contract with an estimated value of $250 million, with the U.S. Department of Defense, to provide advanced Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing systems to the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy.

“We have always tried to anticipate rather than react to market needs. Even so, we are seeing a surge in demand for anti-jamming products as we better understand the capabilities of our adversaries. That has made us change our manufacturing process to reflect this new reality,” said Sam Missett, head of assured position, navigation and timing at Raytheon UK. “We’ve taken a proactive stance and invested in our supply chain to ensure we can build on the success of Landshield and meet these urgent requests in a time-critical manner.”

This includes investing in future developments for Raytheon UK's anti-jamming technologies. There are many different types of GPS signals and whilst the Landshield family of products currently protect on L1 and L2 frequencies, which are the two GPS signals most commonly used, it will evolve to include a greater number of frequencies such as L5, GLONASS and E1. This will mean that it provides a capability that covers all of the different types of satellite-based positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems used globally. The team will also explore how to integrate alternative navigation technologies into Landshield.

“We simply can’t rest on our laurels in such a rapidly evolving landscape,” Missett said. “Although Landshield is currently the market leading anti-jam product, we know our adversaries won’t stop investing to counter it, and as such, we won’t stop innovating to stay one step ahead and keep our friends’ and allies’ signals safe.”