TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s defense minister, Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan, unveiled new military equipment during a June 1 event at the Defense Ministry-affiliated Malek Ashtar University of Technology. The most significant of these products was Hoda, the transmitter for a local positioning system (LPS). Dehghan said that Malek Ashtar had succeeded in building the 1 megawatt, half-cycle transmitter in the first phase of designing the system. Five ground stations equipped with the systems are expected to be built in different regions of the country. These will serve as stations for positioning guided missiles as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), warplanes and other military aircraft.
Iran is trying to develop an alternative to satellite positioning systems, in particular the Global Positioning System (GPS), to guide military hardware during battle. Within Iran, GPS systems have a margin of error of about 30 meters (98 feet), so the Islamic Republic is trying to decrease the distance to about a meter (some 3 feet) by improving its homegrown LPS system.