DARPA award given for Northrop Grumman navigation device WOODLAND HILLS, Calif., April 22 (UPI) -- Demonstration of integration of plug-and-play navigation into hand-held, Android-based devices is continuing under a U.S. military contract to Northrop Grumman. An 18-month, Phase 2 contract for work on developing the open architecture technology has been given to Northrop by the U.S. Defense Research Projects Agency. "This architecture for plug-and-play navigation systems will increase the flexibility and effectiveness of the sensors available to the warfighters," said Charles Volk, a vice president and a chief technologist at Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems sector. The ability to dynamically modify the navigation sensor sources will be a force multiplier for the warfighters. The award, given under DARPA's All Source Positioning and Navigation program, aims to result in low-cost and seamless integration of navigation sensors into Android-based devices for the expanding array of sensors becoming available. Northrop says it is leveraging its scalable node architecture for the project that will maximize use of commercial off-the-shelf software products.