Tag: EAB

EAB Q&A: Urgent actions needed to protect resilient PNT amid spectrum sharing and GNSS policy shifts

What urgent policy or industry actions are needed to protect and advance resilient PNT services amid spectrum sharing debates and GNSS regulation changes?

Jules McNeff, vice president, strategy & programs, Overlook Systems Technologies

In my article, “Is There a Silver Bullet for Resilient PNT?”, I addressed the confusion caused by the numerous and diverse industry initiatives now being offered. Industry is understandably motivated to provide resilient PNT capabilities, but each also wants the government to pick its solution and make policy decisions accordingly. Spectrum sharing decisions that favor a single service provider may harm others in a crowded space, and so are difficult or impractical, as we have seen with the decades of litigation associated with LightSquared/Ligado and the spectrum surrounding the GPS L1 frequency.

Not everyone can win that competition, and as I noted at the end of the article, “Unless our government accepts responsibility, there will be no PNT silver bullet for domestic CI. Experience shows that industry will not solve this problem alone.”

For years, I have advocated that U.S. PNT technology policy be managed and services acquired holistically as vital dual-use civil/military capabilities. For the civilian community, that means making sure the national leadership understands the reliance our domestic critical infrastructure (CI) has on constant access to precise PNT to maintain continuity of operations across all CI sectors in the face of well-known threats. The leadership must then decide whether that reliance deserves proactive attention by the government to ensure PNT continuity is not disrupted.

Several years ago, I suggested that significant regulatory changes were needed in how civil PNT services were handled throughout U.S. CI. Both the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation were assigned responsibility in Presidential Directives for finding a GPS backup to PNT services in domestic CI. I won’t revisit that years-long debate (which is still unsolved), but I will revive the framework of the suggestion.

The DOT has overall responsibility for civil agency PNT matters, and DHS frequently cites lack of regulatory authority as a limitation on its ability to encourage compliance in the CI sectors for which it is responsible. Therefore, I suggested that the National Space-Based PNT Executive Committee consider regulatory changes to expand the definition of the Transportation CI Sector to include safe and uninterrupted transportation of all elements contributing to domestic critical infrastructure. In addition to current air, road, rail, and oil/gas pipeline transportation, add the interstate transport of information (Communications and IT), electrical energy (Power Grids), economic transactions (Finance), crops (Agriculture), and water, as well as domestic maritime services (U.S. Coast Guard) and possibly emergency response services in the case of large disasters.

In the spirit of the former Interstate Commerce Commission, which years ago was replaced by a DOT Surface Transportation Board (primarily concerned with freight rail), the DOT may then seek expansions to STB authorities and membership to address the PNT dependencies and vulnerabilities affecting those fundamentally transportation-oriented activities vital to the viability of all U.S. critical infrastructure sectors.

— Jules McNeff
Overlook Systems Technologies

Miguel Amor, chief marketing officer, Hexagon’s Autonomy & Positioning Division

Regulatory authorities must quickly approve and protect RF spectrum allocated for new PNT capabilities, particularly for emerging low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellations. These systems offer clear advantages in signal strength, geometric diversity and resilience against jamming and spoofing. Without timely and well-defined spectrum authorization, along with strong adjacent-band protections, the deployment of GNSS receivers capable of supporting these constellations will be delayed.

On the industry side, LEO PNT developers must urgently finalize signal structures and release Interface Control Documents, enabling GNSS receiver manufacturers to begin implementation, validation and system integration.

— Miguel Amor
Hexagon Positioning Intelligence

Mitch Narins, Strategic Synergies

Interesting and timely question. I’ve written quite a few pieces and papers on the need for resilient and robust PNT services. If I were to point to a single thing that has held the US (and many other countries in the world back (except for China) it is lack of strong mission-oriented, dedicated leadership. It has been said that the definition of a committee is an entity with four or more legs and no brain. It is time to designate a single entity and a single office and a single person as responsible for ensuring resilient PNT services to US critical infrastructure so as to maintain the safety and security and economic benefits these these sectors support. Some wise men once came up with the idea that a government must “provide for the common defense” and “support the general welfare.” Resilient PNT is essential to achieving both.

In addition to the lack of empowered, centralized PNT leadership, a key problem that has impeded progress towards resilient PNT is the lingering belief by many that given enough time and money and spectrum, GNSS-sole means is achievable and that all non-GNSS systems (affectionately called “Legacy PNT Systems”) can be discontinued. In fact, over the years budget justifications for GNSS systems have used discontinuance of ground-based systems as “a benefit” to balance out the costs of establishing, updating, and operating GNSS.

Engineering System Designer should never fall in love with their solutions. The mission, i.e., the needs of the customers must always remain their first concern. After many years, integrity was added to the list of PNT metrics; coverage has yet to be officially added. Yet, even today, there remains confusion regarding the availability metric and the associated risks. For GNSS systems, the risk of losing required PNT metrics should always be considered “1.0”, and therefore, for critical infrastructure users and providers, require effective and implementable contingency/continuity of operation plans. Loss of PNT performance (accuracy, availability, integrity, continuity, and coverage) the using GNSS can no longer be considered a “Black Swan” event.

— Mitch Narins
Strategic Synergies

In the February 2025, Professor Washington Ochieng proposed the following question to the GPS World EAB.

When we discuss the security of GNSS/PNT systems, we nearly always focus on interference — i.e., meaconing, intrusion, jamming or spoofing. However, GNSS/PNT systems are embedded in systems of systems that also offer many other opportunities for cyberattacks. What should we do about it?

I have thought for some time about why this is an issue. This is an interesting question, and the answer should be straightforward – but it’s not. For whatever reason, it seems many in the “cyber community” believe they are different, somehow, and apart. This has been apparent to me in dealing with those in the cyber community regarding their PNT dependencies and vulnerabilities going back to the creation of USCYBERCOM as a separate combatant command within the DoD. Those in the cyber world seemingly do not see a need to recognize and account for the intersection of PNT and cyber as mutually integral parts of a broader Information Technology ecosystem. Yet, across that entire IT ecosystem, PNT is simultaneously an enabler and a product of IT functionality, as communications and data systems could not operate without it, and it is likewise vital to IT users in executing their diverse missions. Ultimately, interference effects, whether from jamming or spoofing in their various forms or from digital intrusions of one kind or another, disrupt vital elements of that IT ecosystem. Our national and economic security depend on the continuous, reliable, uncorrupted functioning of IT services enabled by and delivering PNT information. So, a straightforward but difficult to implement answer is that we need formal education programs to routinely inform the leaders of industry and government (and the public) of the ubiquitous, vital role of positioning and timing (what we call PNT) throughout all the systems-of-systems whose operation depends on the IT ecosystem – and how to tell if something is amiss.

— Jules McNeff
Overlook Systems Technologies

Read more responses to Professor Ochieng’s question.

June 6, 2025
GNSS/GPS signal integrity in autonomous systems: Key issues and solutions

Question: What are the main challenges facing GNSS/GPS-based autonomous solutions in terms of signal integrity, jamming and spoofing, and how are these being addressed?

Answer: Outside of the military, interference is the most common threat to GNSS, with the dominant source being cellular transmission harmonics. It is commonly addressed with out-of-band filters. Non-terrestrial networks (NTN), like Global Star uplink at 1.6 GHz, are gaining traction in more mobile and wearable devices to fill gaps in cellular availability. However, it can create coexistence issues for devices for concurrent L1 GNSS reception during NTN uplink.

In military cases, while intentional interference is effective, the increasing number of GNSS bands to cover requires more transmission power. Modernized GNSS signals with wider bandwidth signals require more jamming power, which risks detection by radiofrequency emission satellite systems such as Hawkeye 360. The frequency of spoofing events will likely continue to increase and spill over into civilian domains.

Thanks to the increasing number of test ranges being made available to commercial GNSS developers, anti-spoofing technology is making some gains, at least in the high-end systems used for autonomous GNSS.

Q: What are the most impactful use cases and sectors benefiting from recent advancements in autonomous solutions?

A: Ride sharing and transport are the likely winners in exploiting the cost savings of driverless systems with autonomous navigation. The past 15 years’ investments in the development of augmented navigation systems — mainly lidar and vision-based — are finally paying off as we see Waymo in service, and soon Uber and Tesla in commercial deployments. Still, these systems depend solely on GNSS as the absolute positioning system, used for navigation in non-urban environments, but also fallback in certain cases where the sensors are problematic, as well as system calibration.

Agriculture, being one of the first segments to exploit autonomous solutions, can still see incremental gains as GNSS corrections systems move RTK from local to regional, allowing some monthly service margin improvements. High-precision consumer products like robotic lawn mowers will be enabled with similar infrastructure. Data services are a key part of infrastructure, for communication as well as precision navigation enablement. Companies such as Swift Navigation, Point One Navigation and RxN networks are expanding their networks and competing with the likes of Trimble and Hexagon.

May 13, 2025
Paul McBurney, Ph.D., joins GPS World’s Editorial Advisory Board

We are pleased to announce that Paul McBurney, Ph.D., has agreed to join GPS World’s Editorial Advisory Board. He is currently CTO and co-founder of OneNav. Prior to that, McBurney was a GNSS architect at Apple. He was co-founder and CTO of eRide, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in high sensitivity GPS and sensor fusion that Furuno acquired in 2009. He also worked for nearly 10 years at Trimble Navigation, as well as Stanford Telecommunications. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University in 1988 with a focus on GPS integrity monitoring. He has more than 50 patents in the areas of GPS, AGPS and sensor fusion.

Could new clocks protect planes from spoofing of GNSS signals?

GNSS receiver builders would certainly take advantage of better oscillators. Poor clocks hurt performance, while stable clocks improve performance and provide a source of reliable information. A better oscillator by itself cannot prevent getting spoofed, but it can be an important component of an anti-spoofing regime not only for detection but also for mitigation. At OneNav, we started testing SiTime MEMs oscillators. We are using some SiTime devices that have nearly perfect reference frequency, with less than 100 ppb and amazing shock and temperature stability. They are not cheap, but they are improving the manufacturability for lower cost.

TV broadcasters have petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for permission to provide PNT signals.

In the 1990s, Rosum Corp. of Redwood City, California, first tried to do positioning using TV signals. They were famous for a while and most of their engineers are in GNSS now. The inherent advantages of the multipath mitigation in the signal structure are still unexploited, mainly because TV tower navigation suffers from poor positional dilution of precision as many towers are on the same hilltop. It’s hard to imagine what changed in the manufacturing or business model to put this in the news again. It seems like a tough problem to adopt the silicon in a cell phone to receive this signal. It won’t be an answer for resilience except domestically.

Some claim that quantum systems could transform navigation.

Even navigation-grade IMUs have relatively short viability with meter-level accuracy without GNSS. We are preparing some jamming and spoofing tests with the U.S. Navy’s Stiletto program. The IMU is the limit of the project, and quantum IMUs would make a huge impact.

The Federal Aviation Administration is moving toward approving the use of controlled reception pattern antennas (CRPAs) on aircraft.

This is great news for everyone. It will herald a new movement toward more production, with lower cost and improved performance. We need this technology in everything that moves the public.

On February 24, the sun unleashed an X-class flare, triggering a radio blackout across the Pacific Ocean.

Once again, it’s centered on the equator, where most of the heavy stuff with the ionosphere happens. Research on geomagnetic equatorial ionosphere is on the frontier of ionospheric research. Events like this are wild points that don’t make it into the 3 sigma events. Single frequency receivers that rely on total electron content models for accuracy usually see some impact from these solar storms. The ionosphere has a subtle impact on people all over the world. Did anyone notice their navigation system acting any stranger than usual? Did anyone lose any money on the stock market because the timing accuracy degraded from 5 ns to 20 ns? Did a self-driving car have a blackout? I doubt it. But it’s an important part of a data sheet. Companies such as Novatel and Trimble should comment on how they did.

April 29, 2025
Tips to combat cyberattacks on GNSS/PNT systems

For our March 2025 issue, Professor Washington Ochieng proposed the following question to members of our editorial advisory board: When we discuss the security of GNSS/PNT systems, we nearly always focus on interference — i.e., meaconing, intrusion, jamming or spoofing. However, GNSS/PNT systems are embedded in systems of systems that also offer many other opportunities for cyberattacks. What should we do about it?

Miguel Armor

“As a GNSS receiver manufacturer and correction service provider, cyber attacks are a risk we must consider seriously that arises from our customers’ integration of our solutions into complex systems. At the receiver level, it is important to make risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities across all components and implement a robust, multi-layered security strategy that includes physical, network and software components. At the core, our strategy incorporates cybersecurity considerations into our product/service development processes. We utilize the ASPICE framework for our engineering processes and we layer into that process the ISO21434 standard to ensure that we take steps all along the development path to consider cybersecurity. We selected this standard from the automotive industry due to the connected car use case, which is now in the front of cybersecurity development. ISO21434 covers the entire development life cycle — from system, to hardware and software, to verification and validation — in a way that many other standards do not. As a correction service provider, we ensure our data streams are secure and reliable, maintaining the highest standards of accuracy and availability. We also use ISO27001 as an IT framework for our correction network infrastructure. Continuous monitoring and iterative improvements are crucial to maintaining a secure and resilient GNSS/PNT infrastructure. It is key also to prioritize redundancy and backup systems to ensure continuity and resilience, to develop a comprehensive incident response plan that allows for rapid action in case of a breach and to conduct regular employee training to promote cybersecurity awareness across all products and platforms.” – Miguel Amor, Hexagon Positioning Intelligence

Alison Brown

“Cyberattacks are a credible threat to all existing GNSS systems and certainly need to be taken into account when considering alternative resilient PNT solutions. In fact, Goal 3 of the recently released U.S. Department of Transportation PNT Strategic Plan identifies PNT cybersecurity as a critical element of PNT resilience. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provided a report titled Foundational PNT Profile: Applying the Cybersecurity Framework for the Responsible Use of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Services. This cybersecurity framework was created for both users of PNT services to manage risks when using PNT signals or data, and for operators of alternative PNT services to leverage when providing PNT signals or services. It was created by applying the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) and provides approaches for cybersecurity for PNT by continuously monitoring for attacks (e.g., denial of service, jamming), false data, and other malicious behavior within the systems and across the PNT services, using data-driven methods and solutions. This Cybersecurity Framework should be routinely adopted by both users and providers of PNT services.” – Alison Brown, NAVSYS Corp.

March 18, 2025
A special welcome to the GPS World Editorial Advisory Board

I am very pleased to announce that professor Washington Yotto Ochieng has agreed to join our Editorial Advisory Board.

He is the current head of the department of civil and environmental engineering and chair professor in positioning and navigation systems at Imperial College London, where he has been on the faculty since 1997. He is also the interim director of the college’s Institute for Security Science and Technology. Among his several other current roles, he is the president of the Royal Institute of Navigation, formed in 1947 following the example of the U.S. Institute of Navigation; a member of the board of trustees of the Science Museum Group appointed by the UK prime minister; and chair of the advisory board of the Science Museum in London.

For a much longer bio of Ochieng, including his full list of titles and honors, visit here.

GPS World featured Ochieng in its May 2009 issue, in a special section on “GNSS Leaders to Watch.” We wrote that he was “excited by the potential benefits of the new signals from modernized and new signals, and their integration with novel terrestrial systems/sensors.”

He has proposed the following question for EAB discussion:

When we discuss the security of GNSS/PNT systems, we nearly always focus on interference — i.e., meaconing, intrusion, jamming or spoofing. However, GNSS/PNT systems are embedded in systems of systems that also offer many other opportunities for cyberattacks. What should we do about it?
We will publish responses from other EAB members in the next issue.

Finally, our heartfelt thanks to Terry Moore and Jean-Marie Sleewaegen, who resigned from the EAB, for their many contributions over the years, and a special thanks to Jules McNeff, who has served on the EAB since the magazine’s inception 35 years ago!

January 27, 2025
EAB Q&A: Promising approaches to non-GNSS PNT and modernizing the system

(Illustration: sumkinn/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images)

Question: What are currently the most promising approaches to non-GNSS PNT for applications that do not require high accuracy?

Answer: The DOD PNT strategy posits use of space-based, regional and local sources of information to ensure PNT resilience if GPS is disrupted. Resilience does not require GPS-quality accuracy but must enable service continuity for operations while GPS is unavailable. Local sources are viable for limited areas; however, regional sources are necessary for broader coverage. Enhanced Loran (eLoran) can be a viable and affordable backup to GPS. It broadcasts at a much higher power and at a different frequency than GPS, is virtually un-jammable over wide areas, is receivable underwater, and offers a communications channel. eLoran has been recommended as a critical infrastructure backup to GPS by the National PNT Advisory Board and directed by the U.S. Congress. Yet, lacking federal interest or resources, its infrastructure is heedlessly being dismantled — while Russia, China and Iran invest in their own Loran-based backups. What do they know that the United States does not?

Q: What reforms in GPS governance would help accelerate the modernization of the system?

A: Today, modernized GPS is not enough, though it remains the cornerstone of the national PNT Enterprise. Attention to the entire Enterprise is urgently needed. With GPS, the United States enjoyed a dominant GNSS position for nearly three decades. Absent PNT attacks or mishaps, a sense of ‘business-as-usual’ lethargy impedes GPS improvements and the adoption of complements. Leadership watches GPS modernization slide to the right while its complements and needed domestic critical infrastructure backups languish. Within DoD, GPS is no longer a discrete program, and there is no other joint program to command resources and bring urgency and coherence to resilient PNT efforts. Structural changes and experienced, competent acquisition managers are necessary to focus resources and deliver capabilities, and committed leadership is essential for continuity. They must acknowledge PNT as vital to our national security and economy — while our adversaries and competitors leverage its value and can exploit any unaddressed vulnerabilities.

October 21, 2024
EAB Q&A: Diverse PNT sources essential for uninterrupted service

Image: GarryKillian/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

Mitch Narins’ answer to the question, “If not GNSS, then what?” in the August 2024 issue’s EAB Q&A column, conveys an important message. As a result of their quality and availability, services offered by GNSS create dependencies and subsequently the expectation that of course they must always be there. However, recent experiences have shown we cannot rely on that expectation because either natural or hostile occurrences can disrupt GNSS services, no matter what measures are taken to protect them. That is why the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), in its “Strategy for the DOD PNT Enterprise,” assessed that, “To combat man-made and natural threats to GPS, other sources of PNT information will be necessary to assure continuous PNT service …”

The strategy describes a layered PNT architecture using global (GPS), regional (eLoran), and local (or self-contained) sources of PNT information. It states, “The global PNT layer is space-based and available worldwide. The regional PNT layer may be implemented in areas … where PNT resiliency must be assured with backup capability. The local layer provides PNT information using man-made and natural information sources available for a limited time or over a limited area.” To achieve resilience from this layered architecture, the strategy provides an integration concept in which GPS and other GNSS are individually integrated with PNT information from the other layers into resilient applications to operate through the hostile environments they will encounter.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government is ignoring a major piece of this layered strategy in favor of space-based and local or self-contained solutions, as it has dismantled virtually the entire legacy Loran infrastructure in the United States and completely in Alaska, although GPS backups are lacking in the Arctic and northern Pacific regions. The loss of the Alaska sites is particularly concerning as the Arctic and northern Pacific Ocean coverage they would provide is a valuable backup to vulnerable GPS signals at a time when other nations are eying the sea lanes north of Alaska/Canada and conducting excursions around the Aleutian Island chain and the Alaskan coast. Coincidentally, the DOD has just published a new “Arctic Strategy,” which requires availability of PNT from GPS (at least) for its success, though “PNT” is not mentioned. However, without effective PNT, whether from GPS or other sources, the systems on which the strategy depends will fail.

As Mitch notes, there are those GNSS advocates who see strengthened GPS/GNSS as the best answer – but real-world events highlight the need for diversification, and now other nations are expanding their Loran-based regional systems. For its Arctic interests and domestic critical infrastructure as well, the U.S. must wake up to reality and do the same.

September 23, 2024
If not GNSS, then what?

Image: 3DSculptor/iStock / Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

If not GNSS, then what? That is an interesting question.

To some, it means GNSS is so important and unique that without it, all is lost. They enthusiastically support only GNSS-centric research and development, believing that any issues that GNSS has today — such as lack of resilience — can be resolved given enough time and money. It includes pushing for the discontinuance of ground-based systems and the “re-purposing” of their resources to produce more satellites and more space-based signals. It demonstrates an admirable and true dedication to the belief that GNSS is the mission.

To others, these words have a different and darker meaning, warning of a clear and present danger. To them, it means “When (not if) GNSS is not available, what other source(s) of positioning, navigation and timing services (PNT) will be available to support GNSS users’ missions and goals?” For these purpose-driven individuals, GNSS is a means — not the mission, which is to provide the necessary positioning, navigation and/or timing performance, such as accuracy, availability, integrity, continuity and coverage, required to ensure the nation’s safety, security and economic well-being.

Unfortunately, some who have made GNSS their mission strive to convince others that it should be their mission, too!

GNSS is magic — but only when it works. It has played and will continue to play a crucial part in advancing our knowledge and abilities and supporting diverse use cases worldwide. It should and must be supported, but not to the exclusion of everything else. Recently, the magic has failed numerous times all around the world and, as a PNT community of suppliers and users, we must know we are capable of so much more.

We also know that the vast majority of civil PNT service needs are local, not global — based in part on the population density of users and their use cases. Over the years, GNSS’ accuracy and coverage have spoiled us. We even chose to see GNSS interference events as proverbial “black swans.” At the same time, the abandoning of well-engineered, resilient local solutions in favor of a global, one-size-fits-all mentality has been appealing to many. We know this approach is fraught with danger. Throwing away perfectly acceptable, resilient local means rather than enhancing them and bringing their technology into the 21st century may, as a PNT community, be our biggest regret. In many ways we have already gone too far.

I encourage our PNT community to commit to doing more, to open up our minds to design, develop, evolve, create, install, implement and operate more resilient PNT sources and more resilient user systems for which PNT services are critical inputs — especially by focusing on services that are not space-based, operate in different areas of the spectrum, are capable of higher power, and can be installed and evolved more quickly to mitigate emerging new threats. Most importantly, we all need to accept and support the true mission of our PNT community, the “why” that drives our innovative solutions: to ensure PNT services always will be available to support our safety, security and economic well-being.

August 23, 2024
EAB Q&A: GPS use in US infrastructure, PNT services

GPS vulnerabilities have been widely reported in the press. What steps have been taken to back up GPS use in U.S. critical infrastructure?

Jules McNeff

“President Biden on April 30 issued a National Security Memorandum on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. GPS plays a vital role in the operation of critical infrastructure, and some sectors are considering their own backups. Other than conducting studies and meetings to admire the problem, the federal government has done virtually nothing to provide a comprehensive answer. In fact, the government is now dismantling the Loran system, though enhanced Loran (eLoran) is a viable and affordable GPS backup, specifically recommended for use by prior U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretaries. Given the vital role PNT and GPS play, it’s a mystery why such a viable solution is simply ignored.”

— Jules McNeff
Overlook System Technologies

Will GPS remain the Gold Standard of space-based PNT services for the foreseeable future?

“GPS led the emergence and growth of a global space-based PNT service enterprise and has been the Gold Standard since its inception. The U.S. Department of Defense and Air Force (now Space Force) have maintained that standard through stable, transparent, and consistent policies and continuous performance improvements for the services it provides to all users. Now, in the face of foreign competition, hostile threats, budgetary pressures, reorganizations and management fragmentation, dilution of corporate memory, and inconsistent leadership support, those policy and performance foundations are in danger of eroding. The outcome for GPS and its future in the global PNT Enterprise is purely in the hands of our federal leadership today.”

— Jules McNeff
Overlook System Technologies

June 21, 2024
EAB Q&A: Bridge the GPS vulnerability gap

How can commercial space help bridge the GPS vulnerability gap by providing alternative PNT services?

“With the proliferation of commercial SATCOM services being launched to provide global broadband services, there is an opportunity to leverage these capabilities to also augment positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). The Defense Science Board has been directed to consider this and is evaluating how these commercial alternatives, such as PNT signals-as-a-service, could supplement GPS if technical and logistical challenges could be overcome.

With the recent announcement of Iridium buying out Satelles for $115M and the apparent interest in the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to consider using commercial alternatives to provide backup PNT, this is likely to spur other innovations in this space and bring more players (and investors) to the market. This has the potential to significantly increase PNT resilience around the world by enabling the use of existing SATCOM services, with a wide diversity of spectrum allocations separated from GPS, allowing operation

in a GPS-denied environment.

Deployment also can be accelerated by leveraging commercial manufacturers of SATCOM equipment who can rapidly release commercial products with alternative embedded PNT capability that can provide aiding data through the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) standards already developed for A-PNT devices in the DOD acquisition process.

The major barrier to adoption of these services, however, could be the anemic funding being provided for adoption of commercial space services to Space Systems Command’s new Commercial Space Office (COMSO).”

–Alison Brown, NAVSYS Corp.

May 29, 2024
EAB Q&A: OCX is more than seven years behind schedule. What are the consequences?

OCX is more than seven years behind schedule. What are the consequences?

Greg Turetzky

“It’s more consequential than most people realize. The first and most impactful consequence is the limitation of the GPS constellation to
32 satellites. There are more healthy satellites in the sky and, more importantly, Block III satellites sitting in the barn. These additional satellites and their modernized signals would improve navigation globally with improved accuracy and resilience. Additionally, without OCX the L5 signals are labeled ‘unhealthy’ and therefore the constellation is labeled ‘pre-operational.’ Without OCX, L5 cannot reach initial operational capability (IOC), which prevents certain market segments from being able to officially use them. GPS will remain in third place if the delay continues.”

— Greg Turetzky
Consultant

Michael Swiek

“OCX seems more than seven years behind when you consider that we have been hearing about it as a concept and then a proposal for years before it became an actual program. In the Hope and Crosby movie, “The Road to Rio,” Jerry Colonna leads a cavalry charge to rescue the heroine across several brief scenes. He never arrives, and the heroine is saved by other means. Colonna then proclaims, ‘Well, we didn’t make it, but we sure added some excitement!’ While waiting for the heroic arrival of OCX, might the evolution of technology, and regular updates to the current system, already provide some of the improvements promised by OCX? The OCS is already upgraded to accommodate Contingency Operations for GPS III satellites, M-Code early use and incorporated cyber security protections. Is it, maybe, time to just move beyond OCX and start anew with today’s context and assessment of future needs?”

— Michael Swiek
GPS Alliance

March 27, 2024
EAB Q&A: Satellite-based high-accuracy services

Should GPS have a satellite-based high-accuracy service, like Galileo’s and BeiDou’s? What would it take to build it?

Bernard Gruber

“No. As Peter Lynch once said, ‘Know what you own, and know why you own it.’ Although this sage advice was for individuals buying equities, I would offer the same for GPS investing in or ‘guaranteeing’ high-accuracy service. Myriad differential GPS solutions currently exist, next generation atomic clocks are in orbit now, internet-based corrections are available. Evolution will improve accuracy, and techniques for higher accuracy will develop when they are needed by the market. I would rather see investment continue in Alt Nav and compatible GPS solutions. As for Galileo and BeiDou authentication plans, I may provide a different answer.”
— Bernard Gruber
Northrop Grumman

Jules McNeff

“What’s in a name? For most people, GPS already provides a high-accuracy service. Depending on how one uses its signals, you can already track the movement of tectonic plates and changes in Earth reference frames — that’s pretty high accuracy. There are always those who want more, but it’s unreasonable to expect GPS to be the only source, given performance and resilience gains with positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) augmentations and complements along with GPS basic services. The GPS providers need to focus on Job One, a robust set of GPS services for all its users, and not have that mission complicated further.”
— Jules McNeff
Overlook Systems Technologies

March 5, 2024