Hoptroff will host its thought leadership industry roundtable, “GNSS, the time is up,” on March 21. The virtual roundtable will explore the impact of escalating GNSS vulnerabilities to business continuity and how organizations can best protect business-critical operations.
“Businesses and financial institutions need to accept and start planning how they are going to mitigate the risks associated with GNSS,” said Tim Richards, CEO at Hoptroff. “This livestream roundtable will allow business and financial institutional decision-makers to better understand the impact and disruption GNSS vulnerabilities can have on their bottom line, and why they need to act now.”
The roundtable is an opportunity for those in the financial and business sector to learn more about the status of GPS, the growing potential risks from increased jamming, spoofing and cyberattacks, what disruption looks like, and the new technologies available to provide complementary positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies to help mitigate risk.
“GNSS vulnerabilities create serious consequences for critical infrastructure,” said Richard Hoptroff, founder and chief time officer at Hoptroff. “To effectively mitigate these threats, complementary PNT solutions need to be deployed.”
The event will be moderated by Robert Hampshire, deputy assistant secretary for Research and Technology, U.S. Department of Transportation.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seeks to extend Trump policies and repeal timing law counter to its own study and industry input
The Biden administration’s budget proposal delivered to Congress last week includes $17 million for the small Department of Transportation (DOT) office responsible for leading civil positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) efforts for the nation. This is a marked increase over the $2 million allocated in 2020 and estimated $5 million being spent this fiscal year.
At the same time, it seeks to repeal the National Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2018 that mandated DOT establish a terrestrial timing backup for GPS. This, despite the findings of a recently published RAND study completed for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other input from a telecommunications industry group.
Proposed Spending
The administration’s budget proposes $17 million for the DOT Office of Research and Technology to be split among three areas of effort.
Monitoring and detection. The first is a $3.5 million “(GNSS) performance monitoring and interference detection” project. This is a one-time request that is expected to be followed by a request for $1 million in yearly funding to maintain and operate the capability.
While these may not seem like sufficient funds to many, DOT is tasked with working with other departments and agencies, and to leverage existing capabilities. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is specifically named as an important partner with DOT in this effort. NGA already has responsibility for issuing worldwide navigation warnings for U.S. interests. It also has access to a wide variety of information that could be used for the project.
Signal authentication. Another $3.5 million is proposed for Executive Order (EO) 13905 Implementation and GPS Signal Authentication. The EO was issued in February 2020. It seeks to leverage market forces and education to create additional sources of PNT and encourage users to access them. This approach has been criticized by many as unworkable without extensive regulation and mandates for users, while still not addressing the majority of American companies and users.
$1.5 million of this $3.5 million will go to further implement the EO through development of a “PNT threat space model” and otherwise support inter-department PNT profile and research and development efforts.
$2 million would be allocated for a one-time investment in GPS signal authentication to “result in the development and validation of requirements for data and signal authentication capability for civil GPS,” reads the proposal. DOT has regularly requested much greater sums to establish civil signal monitoring, leading many to believe the requirements are already well known. One industry observer suggested this could be “a study in lieu of action.”
GPS Backup. $10 million would be spent for “GPS Backup/Complementary PNT Technologies Research,” essentially follow-on studies to the DOT GPS Backup Technologies Demonstration. “These efforts will further develop PNT modeling, simulation, and testing tools, as well as standards and performance monitoring tools needed to evaluate integration of diverse positioning, navigation, and/or timing technologies into end-user applications. This work will also support development of cyber-secure receivers,” reads the proposal.
One congressional staff member expressed shock at seeing that provision. “The act was the epitome of thoughtful, bipartisan congressional effort,” the staff member said. “It was co-sponsored in the Senate by Markey and Cruz, for crying out loud. You can’t get more bipartisan than that. To have this dumped on us without any notice or consultation is amazing. It is not something I would expect from this White House. I am not sure how serious a proposal it is.”
Some observers on the hill and elsewhere have opined that, rather than the repeal proposal being a well-vetted administration policy, it is an effort by OMB staff held over from the previous administration to carry forward and preserve President Turmp’s Executive Order 13905 and other PNT policies. Rather than focusing on establishing a GPS backup capability, they instead urged PNT users to find and pay for alternatives on their own.
Harsh Tone, False Assertions
Compounding the surprise is the exceptionally harsh tone in the proposal, and assertions that many claim are outright false.
Among the problems with the language seen by observers is its assertion that NTRSA seeks to establish a single backup for GPS services.
“It’s unclear to me where such an assertion is supported in the record,” said Greg Winfree, former Assistant Secretary at DOT in the Obama administration. “NTRSA requires the department to incorporate findings from the GPS back-up demonstration program. That project found a variety of systems are needed to protect America,” he said. “NTRSA does require establishment of at least one system, which is incredibly important. Without at least one alternative in place, GPS is one of highest priority targets for our enemies. We have to get the bullseye off of GPS. NTRSA does that.”
This point on national security was reinforced by Scott Pace, head of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University (GWU). Pace was executive director for the Space Council in the Trump administration. At a recent GWU webinar on the topic, he commented that having an alternative to GPS will contribute to national security and improve global stability. It will “lower the pressure on us to escalate and respond” should GPS satellites be damaged, or services disrupted, he said.
China, Russia, and other nations have terrestrial PNT alternatives to GNSS already in operation. This imbalance creates strategic and tactical problems for the United States, according to many analysts.
The proposed budget also describes NTRSA’s goal of providing at least one backup as “inefficient, anti-competitive and potentially harmful to the existing market for back-up/complementary PNT services.”
“Exactly the opposite is true,” according to Diana Furchtgott-Roth, GWU economics professor. Until January of this year, she led civil PNT issues within the Trump administration as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at DOT. “DOT’s Complementary PNT and GPS Backup Technologies Demonstration Report, published in January, specifically stated that a variety of technologies are needed to complement GPS. What is the most cost-efficient in an urban area is not necessarily the most cost-efficient in a rural or maritime area.”
“PNT is a utility used by every American. Having affordable complementary service available to people in rural and urban areas is the height of efficiency. It is unquestionably in the interests of national and economic security. In fact, access to at least one alternative should be free so to encourage adoption and best protect the nation,” she said.
“GPS is now a free service provided by the government, and the government is responsible for making sure that it is reliable. GPS outages would cause harm across a broad range of economic activities, including emergency services, general aviation, pipelines, and the electricity grid,” according to Furchtgott-Roth.
No-So-New and Contradictory Research
The proposal to repeal NTRSA cites “recent federal analyses” as part of its justification. One of these is likely a report done for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by the RAND Corporation. Touted in a press release last month as “new research” and labeled “Published 2021,” the work was actually completed in 2019. DHS representatives have said the delay in publication was needed for review and approval.
Yet the report was the basis for a DHS report to Congress submitted in April 2020. This has caused some to opine that its publication was timed to reinforce OMB’s effort to repeal NTRSA. “You don’t submit reports to Congress based on un-reviewed, un-approved material,” said a retired DHS official. “The timing of its release is clearly deliberate.”
At the same time, it found that government investment in a national timing network, such as the one mandated by the NTRSA, is likely warranted. Saying that a complete backup for all GPS services in all parts of the country is not cost-beneficial, the study says there are some “…federal initiatives that do appear to be cost effective or close to cost effective.” These include “Timing-only backup through fiber/FirstNet, eLoran, or STL [Satelles].”
According to the retired DHS official, this directly contradicts OMB’s assertion that NTRSA should be repealed. “Either they didn’t read the whole thing, or they counted on most people not reading farther than the top-level recommendations,” he said. “And those top recommendations were clearly selected to match OMB’s desired outcome.”
Telecommunications Industry Cites Need for NTRSA Provisions
The May 2021 “Report to the President on Communications Resiliency” also runs counter to claims made in the budget proposal. In it, the president’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (coordinated by DHS) cites the need for GPS alternatives in telecommunications and urges President Biden to fund them. It specifically mentions the need for a national timing architecture, and cites the provisions of NTRSA several times as a step in the right direction.
The industry group Alliance for Telecommunications Solutions also sent letters in May to congressional leaders urging funding for GPS alternatives.
Continuing the Discussion
Congress has become increasingly dissatisfied with executive branch actions on resilient PNT over the last decade.
The most recent evidence of this is an extensive and highly critical report of the Department of Defense’s approach to PNT resilience released May 10 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Among its recommendations was to not rely on GPS as a primary PNT source but look to more resilient technologies.
While President Trump’s 2020 Executive Order did not make precisely the same recommendation to civil users, it did focus on “responsible use” of PNT and transitioning to using additional, non-GPS dependent sources.
The question still under discussion is how far the government should go to support such a transition.
Seasoned observers regularly comment that Congress has the “power of the purse” and every president’s budget is “dead on arrival” regardless of which party controls the White House.
It seems clear that resilient PNT will be a topic of lively debate between the Congress and the White House, as well as internally on the hill, for the foreseeable future.
Top-level current, former PNT leaders to discuss findings
A “Who’s Who” of positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) leaders will gather virtually at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT on May 5 to discuss findings of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) GPS Backup Technology Demonstration, which took place in 2020.
Included in the “What Technologies Can Secure GPS?” webinar will be DOT Research and Technology leaders from the Obama and Trump administrations, Greg Winfree and Diana Furchtgott-Roth, and currently serving career DOT officials Karen Van Dyke and Andrew Hansen.
Robert Hampshire, current DOT Acting Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, will make his first public appearance discussing PNT issues.
The event is sponsored by George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute and moderated by Scott Pace. Pace served as the executive director for the Space Council in the last administration. In that capacity, he was responsible for a series of directives and policies impacting PNT in the United States.
Describing the plan for the event, the formal announcement states, “Three separate laws have required the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to back up and complement the Global Positioning System, subject to congressional appropriations. To provide a roadmap, in January the department released its Complementary PNT and GPS Backup Technologies Demonstration Report.”
The program will open with remarks from Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute, who will also moderate the discussion. Hampshire will offer introductory remarks. Van Dyke and Hansen will follow up with a presentation of the report. George Washington University Adjunct Professor Diana Furchtgott-Roth and the Texas Transportation Institute’s Greg Winfree will provide comments.”
A question-and-answer session will follow the addresses and discussion.
The event is free and open to the public, though advance registration is required. Registrants will receive a Zoom link. The webinar will also be recorded.
The U.S. Department of Transportation “…is seeking the best solutions to ensure that America has a combination of PNT [positioning, navigation and timing] systems which, when used together, will be difficult to disrupt” according to remarks made at a recently concluded conference.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Diana Furchtgott-Roth is the department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology. She made the comments during a keynote address at the Royal Institute of Navigation’s annual conference in Edinburgh mid-November.
Trained as an economist, Furchtgott-Roth noted that Edinburgh was the home of Adam Smith who in the 1700s referred to the efficiency of free markets as an “invisible hand” guiding economies. She regularly referred to GPS as “the invisible hand” guiding individuals, transportation, and technologies across the globe.
Citing GPS as a “one of the great and heroic systems of our times,” she also acknowledged wide and generally unconscious reliance on GPS signals, and its vulnerabilities. “A lot of the work in research and technology at the Transportation Department…assumes the existence of GPS. It assumes that GPS will continue to work, sight unseen, without interference.”
A dedicated GPS-only receiver “sounds as outdated as a pager.”
While PNT is essential now, she said, it will be even more important in the future as it becomes essential for even more safety applications.
“Public confidence in these will be critical. People will not be comfortable getting into an automated vehicle or with platooning driverless trucks heading down the highway if they think that their invisible hand is not reliable and that their GPS might be spoofed.”
As part of this, development and adoption of a wide variety of space-based, terrestrial, and self-contained navigation sensors must be deployed and widely adopted. A dedicated GPS-only receiver, she said, “sounds as outdated as a pager.”
She also echoed the theme of protecting frequencies, toughening receivers, and augmenting GPS signals as a way of achieving greater PNT resilience.
The department let a contract in November for demonstration of 11 technologies that could serve as a GPS augmentation/backup system. Furchtgott-Roth said, “This effort will inform implementation of a system that by law is required to be terrestrial, wireless, have wide area coverage, be difficult to disrupt, and be capable of expansion to provide positioning and navigation services.”
Departing from her prepared script, she added, “The Department of Transportation hopes to come to a decision by next May. Then we will get together with the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security and chose a technology or combination of technologies… And then we hope that our Congress will allocate funds to purchase this equipment. Our top priorities are national and economic security. We cannot have GPS be a single point of failure for transport and other critical infrastructure.”
The United States published its National PNT Architecture Study in 2008 citing the need for an integrated and resilient approach. Despite its call for use of multiple phenomenologies and an implementation plan signed several years later little has been done as of yet now.
Furchtgott-Roth’s comments came roughly a month after a Chinese representative to a Stanford symposium that here nation was developing a national “comprehensive PNT” after the fashion of what was called for in the U.S.’s 2008 study.
The last two U.S. presidential administrations failed to follow through on promises to protect GPS and the nation with a system to backup GPS. A recent Department of Transportation (DOT) appointee is aiming to fix that.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth is deputy assistant secretary of Transportation for Research and Technology. Her office has a broad range of responsibilities including as the federal government lead for civil GPS and PNT issues.
Since Furchtgott-Roth arrived at the department in February, she has been adamant about the need to establish a complementary and backup system that users can access when GPS is not available or signals need reinforcing. She notes that this has been a presidential policy requirement for DOT since 2004.
There are also two Congressional mandates on this issue. The first mandate was in a law passed in 2017. The National Defense Authorization Act tasked the Departments of Defense, Transportation, and Homeland Security to jointly conduct a technology demonstration of GPS backup technology.
Congress funded this project in 2018 through the Defense department, even though DOT was the lead agency. Bureaucratic delays in transferring the funds between departments has meant that, rather than concluding in the summer of 2019 as initially required, the demo is behind schedule by about eight months.
Much of this transpired before Furchtgott-Roth arrived on scene and she is determined to make up for lost time.
A Request for Information (RFI) seeking candidate GPS backup technologies was issued in early May of this year and closed 30 days later. Twenty-two responses were received, though some just offered comments and observations rather than proposing technologies.
Working through the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Furchtgott-Roth’s goal is to demonstrate as many of the technologies as possible and conclude the effort by March of next year.
“We want to thoroughly understand all of the proposed technologies, including their ability to penetrate indoors and underground without assistance,” Furchtgott-Roth said.
The department’s procurement website forecasts a Request for Proposals for this effort this month (the site says it will be issued in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year which ends on Sept. 30). The opportunity is described as “Backup Global Positioning System (GPS) Technical Consulting Services for participation in a technology demonstration” with an estimated value of between $700,000 and $2,000,000.
Small businesses that want to be on the notification list for this can do so through the FedBizOpps announcement page.
The second legislative mandate was signed into law in December 2018. The National Timing Resilience and Security Act requires the Department of Transportation to establish a timing system to back up GPS by December 2020.
Among the requirements specified in the Act are that the system must be terrestrial, wireless, have wide area coverage, be difficult to disrupt, and be capable of expansion to provide positioning and navigation services.
Furchtgott-Roth plans to integrate the department’s responses to both taskings as much as possible. “What we learn from the tech demo should very much inform the implementation of the National Timing Resilience and Security Act,” she said.
She also wants everyone on the project to keep in mind that establishment of the timing system is just the first phase of creating a more robust and resilient national PNT architecture. “Timing is important, and we are going to reinforce it first,” she said. “But it is not going to provide resilient positioning and navigation for drones, autonomous vehicles, and all our other transportation needs. America must have a combination of systems available that, when used together, will be very difficult to disrupt.”
To keep things moving quickly, Furchtgott-Roth says she is leaning toward signals provided by a commercial entity, rather than a government-built system.
“The Act suggests we consider a public-private-partnership, and there are a lot of advantages to that,” she said. “The government wouldn’t need to stand up a big acquisition staff or have a large appropriation of funds from Congress. Also, private entities are often able to act faster and be more agile. And they assume most of the project risk.” The aviation safety ADS-B system was created using such a procurement model.
The only snag is that while Congress has appropriated money for the tech demo, it has not yet done so for the mandated operational system. Sources in Congress point out that although the House version of the 2020 budget has $32 million for Air Force “Resilient PNT,” nothing has been allocated for civilian users.
“$32 million would go a long way for DOT’s efforts to protect the 99.9% of GPS users who are not in DoD,” said one congressional staff member. He was hopeful the Senate would designate funds in its version of appropriations for DOT and the issue would be resolved positively in conference.
“GPS has become an invisible utility that so many of our technologies depend upon,” observed Karen Van Dyke, who leads PNT efforts for Furchtgott-Roth’s office. “Providing a complementary and/or backup capability ensures users have PNT even when GPS is disrupted. It may also help protect the signals themselves by deterring malicious actors who might otherwise want to jam or spoof GPS.”
“President Trump’s top priorities are national and economic security. We can’t have GPS signals be a single point of failure for transportation and other critical infrastructure sectors,” Furchtgott-Roth said.
Dana A. Goward is the president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation.
