The Institute of Navigation recognizes Dr. Alison Brown with prestigious Johannes Kepler Award at the ION GNSS+ 2026 Conference for her sustained record of pioneering technical innovations, operational deployments, strategic leadership, and PNT community advancement.
Dr. Alison Brown’s career spans more than 40 years of pioneering contributions to satellite navigation technology and applications. She has developed and demonstrated hardware and software capabilities for military and commercial systems, including WAAS Ground Uplink station equipment and algorithms, GPS jammer location (JLOC) systems, ultra-low power GPS tracking sensors, cooperative networked acquisition techniques to speed acquisition of military P(Y) and M-code signals, and Open Architecture PNT based on signals of opportunity.
In 1991, Dr. Brown and Sturza filed a patent for a “GPS Tracking System,” the basis for TIDGET—a snapshot receiver that periodically captures a “snapshot” of sampled GPS data to be stored and processed locally or published over a data-link for remote processing. TIDGET was optimized for cost-critical and power-limited applications such as radiosondes and sonobuoys. Under Dr. Brown’s leadership, NAVSYS advanced both hardware and software to enable a set of applications, including the first cell phone GPS to support mobile E911 through network assistance; navigation in urban environments; and a demonstration of GPS operation above the constellation on the USAFA Falcon Gold experiment in geo-transfer orbit (1997).
In 1999, Dr. Brown introduced HAGR—a digital receiver architecture integrated with a digital beam-steering array that combined signals from multiple antennas to create dynamic multi-beam patterns. These capabilities have been used to simultaneously provide gain for multiple GPS satellites and create nulls to reject jamming or multipath. The system significantly improved tracking performance under jamming and enhanced code and carrier tracking for real-time kinematic (RTK) GPS. HAGR capabilities have been essential in supporting military systems in proving that carrier-phase precision can be maintained under jamming conditions for applications such as precision approach and landing.
Additionally, Dr. Brown pioneered the development of the first GPS cell phone (on display at the Smithsonian); the innovative “bent pipe” technology used by the WAAS and MT-SAT space-based augmentation systems; GI-Eye—an early system that integrated video, inertial, and GPS data for precision targeting and visual navigation; early advanced GPS Software Defined Radios (SDRs) with jammer location, civil and military (P(Y)) signal tracking, and ultra-tightly coupled inertial aiding for anti-jam protection; and the first open-architecture inertial navigation product (InterNav). Today she is leading the development of a backup capability to GPS, termed PNT as a Service (PNTaaS), that leverages multiple-frequency GEO/MEO/LEO SATCOM signals of opportunity to seamlessly provide resilient PNT capability to end users in GNSS-denied environments.
Dr. Brown is the founder, president, and CEO of NAVSYS Corporation, which she founded in 1986. She has been an impactful leader in the GNSS community throughout her career, serving nationally on leading panels and advisory boards. She was also a founding member of the ION’s Satellite Division and one of the original organizers and developers of the ION’s Satellite Division Meeting, now held as ION GNSS+. Her technical publication record comprises 12 patents and more than 225 presentations and technical articles. She earned her MA from Cambridge University, her MS from MIT, and her PhD in Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering from UCLA. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of ION and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
About ION
The Institute of Navigation is a not-for-profit professional organization advancing positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). The Institute is a national organization whose membership spans worldwide. Additional information about the ION can be found at ion.org.
