February 9, 2022

Colloquium Topic: Absolute Positioning using the Earth's Magnetic Field

This talk will describe the principles, capabilities, advantages, and limitations of navigation using magnetic anomalies found in the earth’s lithosphere (MAGNAV).  It will also describe a proposed NASA mission to collect global high-quality magnetic anomaly map data and speak to the future of MAGNAV.  Finally, it will highlight how hypersonic platforms in particular may be an important niche application area for MAGNAV.

---

Colloquium Speaker: MAJ Aaron Canciani

Major Aaron Canciani received his PhD from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in Dayton, OH in 2016.  His dissertation was titled "Absolute Positioning Using the Earth’s Magnetic Field."  Since then, Aaron has championed an effort by the Air Force to develop and demonstrate technologies that enable precision global navigation without the use of GPS.  In 2018, he demonstrated the ability of F/16 aircraft to navigate using MAGNAV, and the ability to achieve RMS position accuracies of 50 meters and accuracies of 10 meters on a Cessna.