Honeywell Aerospace has recently completed a successful flight demonstration of its Kestrel Small Embedded GPS/Inertial Navigation System aboard an off-the-shelf Group 2 unmanned aircraft system.
The demonstration validated Kestrel’s ability to deliver positioning, navigation, and timing data by combining Global Navigation Satellite System signals with Honeywell Aerospace’s HG3900 near-navigation-grade micro-electromechanical systems inertial technology. Designed for small tactical platforms, the system is intended to provide reliable navigation performance in environments where satellite navigation signals may be degraded, denied, jammed, or spoofed.
As military forces around the world increasingly rely on small, rapidly deployable unmanned aerial systems for reconnaissance, targeting, electronic warfare, and other missions, demand is growing for resilient navigation technologies that can operate in contested environments. Traditional embedded GPS/inertial systems can exceed the size, weight, and power requirements of tactical drones, creating a need for more compact alternatives.
Michael Jirjis, Defense Navigation Offering Management Director at Honeywell Aerospace, said, “Kestrel was developed to provide resilient, military-grade navigation capabilities to platforms that are simply too small to accommodate traditional EGI systems. This successful flight demonstration validates our approach and represents an important step toward delivering a new generation of assured navigation capability for tactical unmanned systems operating in challenging environments.”
Kestrel is approximately 40% smaller and lighter than Honeywell Aerospace’s full-size EGI systems. The system combines Honeywell Aerospace’s HG3900 inertial technology with M-Code capability and multiple GNSS receivers to help improve navigation resilience when satellite signals are unreliable or unavailable.
The flight testing also demonstrated the integration of alternative navigation modalities, including Honeywell Aerospace’s vision navigation software and signals from low Earth orbit satellites. According to Honeywell Aerospace, these alternative navigation modalities enable a broader resilient navigation capability for unmanned platforms that require robust navigation performance but cannot accommodate larger legacy navigation systems.
Honeywell Aerospace is continuing development of Kestrel and plans to conduct customer demonstrations next year. First deliveries are planned for late 2027.
