Talking GPS Locating System

Abstract

The Talking GPS Locating System (TGLS) was developed to facilitate recovery of airborne targets by vocalizing and transmitting their Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates to surface recovery teams following target splashdown. The airborne portion of the TGLS includes an off-the-shelf five-channel GPS receiver board, a GPS antenna, a microcontroller board with voice sample/playback circuitry, and a transmitter with antenna. Also part of the TGLS is a Record/Test Unit (RTU) which is used for pre-launch voice recording and ground tests. Upon splashdown, the TGLS is energized, the GPS receiver is initialized, and an optional homing tone burst -- periodically interrupted by a voice message relaying target and GPS receiver status -- is transmitted. Once the receiver has output valid longitude and latitude information to the microcontroller, this position is vocalized as the GPS status portion of the broadcast message. Just one intelligible reception of this message by any inexpensive, properly-tuned voice receiver will allow recovery teams to vector to within 25 to 100 meters of the target regardless of weather conditions or the time of day.