Tag: PNT Enterprise

GAO discusses DOD PNT management and leadership — again
In early August, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its third report in 15 months about GPS and other positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) issues within the Department of Defense (DOD). Each report raised raised concerns about the way in which PNT programs were being managed and led within the department.

Defense Navigation Capabilities

In May 2021, GAO reported on “Defense Navigation Capabilities : DOD is Developing Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Technologies to Complement GPS.”

Observations included that DOD continues to rely heavily on GPS despite known vulnerabilities. Also, that alternate PNT efforts are not well coordinated and receive little support.

“Opportunities” for DOD to improve its alternate PNT efforts, according to the report, include:
- Improving coordination across the services
- Clarifying authorities and responsibilities for prioritizing needs
- Focusing on resiliency versus GPS as the cornerstone of department PNT efforts
- Clarifying PNT requirements rather than just defaulting to GPS as “the need”
- Coordinating with industry.
GPS Modernization

In May, GAO issued the report “GPS Modernization: Better Information and Detailed Test Plans Needed for Timely Fielding of Military User Equipment.” about the implementation of M-code — the military-only, stronger, more jam-resistant signal.

The report pointed out that M-code has been in development for 20+ years, and that GPS satellites have been capable of transmitting M-code signals since 2005. Also, while there are still program risks, the Next Generation Ground Control Segment, known as OCX, is forecast to be ready to support M-code use by 2023.

OCX has experienced severe cost overruns and is more than five years behind its original schedule. GAO issued a report on OCX delays in May 2019.

M-code won’t really be a capability in DOD, though, until user equipment is widely fielded. That will take several more years, according to GAO.

One of the remaining challenges to M-code implementation, GAO said, was that the department did not collect and validate all the data it needed for leadership planning and prioritization.

GPS Alternatives

The first week of August saw release of the GAO report “GPS Alternatives: DOD Is Developing Navigation Systems But Is Not Measuring Overall Progress.”

A summary on the first page of the report contains what could be seen as harsh criticism of how PNT efforts are led within DOD:

“DOD’s overall PNT portfolio is managed by the PNT Oversight Council, a statutorily established senior-level body. However, the Council has largely prioritized modernizing the existing GPS system over alternative PNT efforts during recent meetings and has no strategic objectives or metrics to measure progress on the alternative efforts.”

Image: DOD

Too Much Leadership?

Some believe the real problem with DOD PNT is not a lack of leadership, but rather too much.

“If everyone is in charge, no one is,” commented one retired senior military officer familiar with the issue.

“Congress has been concerned about DOD’s lack of attention to GPS and PNT alternatives for years,” the individual said. “In 2015 Congress mandated creation of the Oversight Council to help ensure PNT got the right amount of leadership attention.” This may have not had the desired effect, though.

“The council is comprised of three undersecretaries, the vice chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], four combatant commanders, the NSA [National Security Agency] director, DOD’s CIO [chief information officer], and host of other very senior folks. All of whom have way too many other duties. It’s no wonder the department has a hard time getting things done!”

The department’s CIO is the Defense Secretary’s Principal Staff Assistant for PNT. As such, the CIO is tasked with coordinating department-wide efforts. The task is made particularly difficult by the many and diverse players across the department, all of whom have their own authorities, interests and projects.

Proposed systems and capabilities are examined and developed by a variety of DOD organizations. These include laboratories belonging to the five services and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Programs of Record, which usually lead to acquisition of large systems, are led and managed within the individual services.

A Better Way?

Aside from recommending improved coordination of PNT efforts across the department, GAO has never addressed the way DOD manages its PNT enterprise.

“That is not something we normally get into unless specifically tasked,” said one of the reports’ authors. “We assume departments know best how to lead and manage their efforts.”

Others are not so reticent. They believe the current management structure is incapable of managing the development, acquisition and fielding of the DOD PNT Enterprise with any urgency or efficiency.

“GAO’s focus on the Oversight Council is misplaced,” one retired official asserted. “The missing piece is not oversight, it’s day-to-day DOD-wide management.”

“They need a multi-service program of record for resilient PNT,” the official said. “This would be separate from the GPS program, which would keep its own projects going and feed into the resilient effort. The new resilient PNT program should be managed by a Joint Program Office, which could consolidate integration and acquisition of resilient PNT applications. The office would be the steward for the critical technologies that underpin the modular, open-system integration strategy, including the digital reference architecture, input and output standards, software fusion engines, and needed modeling and simulation tools to ensure NAVWAR compliance.”

Such a construct could provide needed focus and coordination to DOD efforts, address many long-standing congressional concerns, and, by coordinating efforts within DOD and with industry, accelerate progress.

Related article: Who Runs GPS?

Dana A. Goward is President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. He serves on the President’s National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board.
August 18, 2022
GPS and GNSS: confronting dual-use realities

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

I welcome the opportunity to contribute and congratulate GPS World on your 30th anniversary. Over those 30 years, I have watched GPS influence how the world works. Early on, along with its vital contributions to U.S. and allied military operations, there was great optimism that sharing civil GPS technology openly would bring improved safety and efficiency to people around the world. However, that sense of optimism has dimmed as GPS, and the GNSS construct and PNT enterprise that it spawned, confront evolving real-world events.

Several years ago, I wrote a paper positing that in terms of dual-use utility and risks, GPS and related PNT capabilities are analogous to two other technology innovations that have occurred since the Second World War: atomic energy and the internet. The paper considered GPS/PNT in the context of each, reflecting our experiences with those two dual-use extremes.

The paper concluded that, unlike atomic energy, which has been fairly well controlled, GPS/PNT more closely resembles the internet, which has for better or worse been allowed to grow into a global capability virtually without constraint. For GPS/PNT, a fixation on civil, commercial and scientific uses enabled civil authorities uncomfortable with the military side of the dual-use equation to ignore that reality and focus only on “peaceful” civil and scientific endeavors. Unfortunately, the international comity that participants had hoped for, and that appeared for a time to be real, can no longer be assured.

Where the U.S. has been open and transparent regarding a dual-use GPS, others have not. Now, the open sharing of information that has been the hallmark of the civil GNSS community over the years must be viewed seriously and candidly through the clear lens afforded by the overt actions of GNSS providers.

Collective efforts to improve GNSS for peaceful uses ignore the reality that the information shared can equally and dangerously undermine international security. As with the internet, those who have become dependent on precise GPS/PNT services must now reactively create protections and remediations to deal with increasingly real threats from those we had considered colleagues.

So, naivete and optimism must finally yield in the face of hard reality.

September 28, 2020
US Department of Defense PNT strategy: ‘GPS is not enough’
- GPS might be interfered with globally
- Multiple, diverse PNT sources, modular open system needed for receivers
- Civil use hampering military efforts to leverage GPS for military advantage
- DoD PNT efforts to be increasingly classified, not shared with civil users
In August, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) publicly released a version of its “Strategy for the Department of Defense Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Enterprise” with the tagline “Ensuring a U.S. Military PNT Advantage.”

Calling PNT “foundational,” the strategy observes that the U.S. military has over the years structured its weapons systems and business processes around GPS PNT. This has created a tremendous dependence and associated vulnerability.

Added to this threat is the realization that “At the same time, it is increasingly clear… GPS will be targeted and will not always be available in contested military operating areas, or perhaps globally.”

Multiple diverse sources of PNT

One of the primary ways DoD will deal with is this is to access multiple diverse sources of PNT. These will be in a multi-layered architecture of global, regional and local services.

The strategy envisions GPS, paired with military-grade receivers, as the primary global layer source. It recognizes that allied GNSS will be available, but observes that DoD has not done any accuracy and integrity assessments to determine their usefulness. And, since “…all are vulnerable to the same interference and jamming effects” as GPS, “…other sources of PNT information with different characteristics are necessary.”

The regional layer is defined by systems that service large areas such as a few countries or even continents. Recognizing that regional sources can be in space, the strategy discusses two low-frequency ground-based systems with characteristics much different from satellites — enhanced Loran (eLoran) and spatial, temporal and orientation information in contested environments (STOIC).

“Their high power and low frequency enable regional/nationwide coverage, spectrally separate from GPS services, accessible in buildings and under water, and transmitted from dispersed terrestrial locations. Each can be considered as a possible complement to GPS, depending upon operational circumstances and requirements.”

Short-range radio frequency systems, clock, inertial, sensory and hybrid PNT services integrated with wireless networks are all cited as possible contributors to the local layer of DoD’s PNT architecture.

Modular, open-systems approach

Receivers that employ a modular, open-systems approach that can ingest and integrate the various sources of PNT information are needed to take advantage of this multi-source, multi-layer strategy. And integration of the various sources must be seamless and invisible to the user, unless they decide otherwise.

“The employment of multiple PNT sources should not require user awareness or intervention to switch among alternatives during mission execution unless the user elects that option.”

A critical need for implementing this approach, according to the strategy, is the establishment of PNT input/output standards. The document notes that candidate standards have been developed, and it is vital to finalize and approve the standards and bring them into operational service as soon as possible.

Other provisions

The strategy includes a number of other provisions regarding internal DoD processes, the complicated governance process for PNT within the department, and some complex graphics that may be of interest to the larger PNT community.

It also sends several messages about the department’s desires, intent and concerns in the world of PNT that are worth noting.

NAVWAR. The department’s main defensive capability during navigation warfare will be the use of its layered architecture of PNT information and modular, open-systems integration. For offensive operations, it cautions warfighters to not shoot themselves in the foot. PNT is so vital to a wide variety of allied systems, it warns, that denying it to hostiles could do as much damage to friendly forces.

PNT dominience/superiority. At at time when there are more of China’s brand new BeiDou satellites in the skies of many cities, and China is negotiating with Russia for closer BeiDou/GLONASS integration, the strategy calls for the U.S. DoD to achieve PNT dominance. To date, U.S. PNT leadership has been a big contributor to the nation’s political and military leadership in the world. The strategy seeks to continue this.

Accelerate M-code receivers. The need to get more M-code GPS receivers into the hands of warfighters is mentioned several times. GPS III satellites have been transmitting M-coded signals that are much more resilient to jamming and spoofing than civil signals since late 2018. These are useless, though, without properly equipped receivers in the field.

Future support to Civil PNT. The strategy also seems to show the department is distancing itself from support of future civil PNT endeavors. While GPS has been an incredible economic engine and boon to civil users, this has not always been in DoD’s best interests.

“It must also be recognized that in this context growing civil dependence on GPS services for critical infrastructure and public use will continue to constrain the ability of the DoD to maintain a military PNT advantage from GPS.”

It goes on to warn that future DoD PNT systems and efforts will not follow the same path to civil-military use as was taken by GPS.

“DOD must take steps to ensure the civil agencies are aware of and are sensitive to the dual-use implications inherent in GPS and other PNT Enterprise applications. From this point forward, many of the specific PNT capabilities and combinations of PNT capabilities employed by the DoD for military purposes will increasingly be classified.”

The way ahead for the 99%

It is clear that the Department of Defense, through the very capable leadership of its CIO, Dana Deasy, has a clear idea of where it is with PNT, its critical challenges, and how to overcome them.

This does not appear to be the case for those in the federal government charged with safeguarding the interests of civil users. With responsibilities fragmented across a host of departments and agencies, efforts on behalf of the public at large are barely visible compared to those the Defense Department is taking to protect itself.

According to officials, this may change. They report that leadership of civil PNT within the executive branch is under review with an eye to making it more efficient and effective.

Perhaps it will result in a PNT strategy for the 99% of GPS users who are not connected with the Defense establishment, making them safer and more secure as well.

“Strategy for the Department of Defense Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Enterprise” is available online.
October 4, 2019