Lockheed Martin Northstar™

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Northstar™

Lockheed Martin Northstar™

Enabling critical missions through Assured Navigation in GPS-Denied Environments

Lockheed Martin Northstar™, developed by Skunk Works®, uses cutting-edge computer vision to provide real-time positioning on board Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), enabling reliable navigation in GNSS-degraded environments.

Northstar™ is an Assured Position Navigation & Timing (APNT) algorithm that computes an aircraft’s position and movement by performing real-time terrestrial image analysis from a downward-facing camera. It is an ITAR-free software solution that can be installed on an onboard mission computer, requiring minimal hardware integration.

Northstar™ unlocks precise navigation and autonomous flight modes for UAVs in the absence of a reliable GNSS connection, allowing the mission to continue in contested environments where traditional systems would fail.

Low-SWaP

Northstar™'s tiny hardware footprint makes it easy to integrate. Unlike other vision-based navigation solutions, it does not rely on an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) or any other specialized sensors.

No Prior Knowledge of Terrain Required

Northstar™ does not rely on pre-loaded terrain data or imagery. This allows operators to fly with confidence even in areas that have experienced sudden changes in terrain, such as extreme human-caused or natural events.

Less Than 1% Drift

Northstar™'s average error over distance traveled, measured against healthy GNSS estimates during test flights, is consistently below 1% under normal operating conditions.

Runs in the Background on Your Mission Computer

Runs on low-SWaP NVIDIA® Jetson hardware such as the Jetson NX and Jetson AGX Orin™
Uses less than 3GB of memory (RSS) in an hour of continuous operation*
Less than 250% average CPU utilization (across 6 cores)*

*Under normal operating conditions, measured on a 16GB Nvidia Xavier SOC running in a 15W power mode.

Works With EO and IR Cameras

Northstar™ is proven to produce accurate estimates using imagery from various types of Electro-Optical (EO) and Infrared (IR) cameras across a diverse range of terrain, from agricultural fields to suburban environments.

Open Architecture & Easy to Integrate

Vehicle and autopilot-agnostic
Uses industry-standard protocols
Includes software development kit
ArduPilot integration available

Northstar Hubble-Lite VCSi Plugin

Monitor and control Northstar™ directly from Lockheed Martin VCSi using the Northstar Hubble-Lite plugin. While Northstar™ can be integrated with any control station, Northstar Hubble-Lite is seamlessly integrated into VCSi for optimized mission planning and execution in GNSS-degraded environments.

Upcoming Features

Upcoming Northstar™ capabilities currently in development include:

Enhancing robustness to aggressive maneuvers and adverse flight conditions using optical flow
Expanding Northstar™'s fixed-wing flight envelope by optionally leveraging multiple cameras
Support for starting missions within fully-GNSS-denied environments