Apple iPad owners now have the convenience of reading GPS World on their devices. GPS World has made available a free application that provides an interactive version of GPS World at your fingertips, access to digital back issues, and an RSS feed with the latest in GNSS industry news.
Downloading the app is free and simple. Search GPS World in the App Store, or go to http://itunes.com/apps/GPSWorldHD.
The Second Joint FIG/IAG/ISPRS Symposium on Deformation Monitoring will be held at the University of Nottingham, in Nottingham, England, September 9-11, 2013. The conference aims to bring together scientists, engineers, educators, representatives from public authorities, policy makers in surveying, geodesy, civil, structural, geotechnical and mining engineering, geology, geodynamics, geosciences, geohazard studies and hydrology, to showcase the latest trends and innovation in deformation measurement, analysis and interpretation.
According to a report from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, transmissions of the L1/E1 signal from the recently launched Galileo satellite IOV-3 (FM-3) started at about 13:55:20 GPS Time December 1. Transmissions from IOV-3 of the E5 signal began December 2. By December 4, all three Galileo bands, including E6, were being broadcast, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).
Several stations of the Cooperative Network for GNSS Observation as well as some stations participating in the International GNSS Service’s Multi-GNSS Experiment are tracking IOV-3. The satellite is using PRN code E19.
The Galileo In-orbit Validation (IOV) satellites were launched on October 12 (Flight Model 3 and 4). Now that FM3’s payload has been activated, FM4 is set to begin transmitting test navigation signals later this month. The first two satellites have already passed their in-orbit testing.
Galileo is designed to provide highly accurate timing and navigation services to users around the world, ESA said, so the testing is being carried out in addition to the standard satellite commissioning to confirm that the critical navigation payloads have not been degraded by the violence of launch.
While the satellites are run from Galileo’s Oberpfaffenhofen Control Centre near Munich in Germany and their navigation payloads are overseen from Galileo’s Mission Control Centre in Fucino, Italy, a separate site is used for the in-orbit testing. Located in the heart of Belgium’s Ardennes forest, Redu is specially equipped for Galileo testing, with a 15-m diameter S-band antenna to upload commands and receive telemetry from the satellite, and a 20-m diameter L-band dish to monitor the shape and quality of navigation signals at high resolution.
“This marked the very first time that a Galileo payload was activated directly from ESA’s Redu centre in Belgium,” explained Marco Falcone, overseeing the campaign effort as Galileo’s System Manager. “We have now established an end-to-end setup in Redu that allows us to upload commands generated from Fucino’s Galileo Control Centre to the satellite payload whenever the satellite passes over the station, while at the same time directly receiving the resulting navigation signal through its main L-band antenna.
“The result is our operations are much more effective, shortening the time needed for payload in orbit testing.”
Operating at an altitude of 23,222 km, the Galileo satellites take about 14 hours to orbit Earth, typically coming into view of Redu for between three to nine hours each day.
Raytheon UK has been awarded a significant contract by the UK Ministry of Defence for delivery of a new GPS anti-jam antenna land system. The contract is for an undisclosed number of advanced systems for deployment in operational theaters spanning multiple vehicle platforms. This UOR (Urgent Operational Requirement) contract is the first award for Raytheon’s GPS Anti-Jam (AJ) Land product family.
“Raytheon UK has a track record of on-time delivery for GPS AJ systems, having delivered over 7,000 units for air and naval capabilities in the UK and U.S., said Bob Delorge, chief executive, Raytheon UK. “Many of the military platforms used in operations are protected by the proven Raytheon GPS anti-jam technology, and the first order for our Land GPS AJ product family marks a significant success.”
The contract will see the deployment of the systems under a very short timescale, with final delivery of the capability expected to be completed six months from contract award.
Raytheon UK is a subsidiary of Raytheon Company. It is a prime contractor and major supplier to the UK Ministry of Defence. Raytheon UK also designs, develops and manufactures a range of high-technology electronic systems and software at facilities in Harlow, Glenrothes, Uxbridge, Waddington and Broughton.
By Oscar Pozzobon
The GNSS interference session this year at the ION-GNSS conference in Nashville was one of the most crowded, confirming the need of all sectors of the community to understand the threats in GNSS and how they can be mitigated. In that context I received one of the most challenging questions of my career: “Can we predict the future of GNSS security?” What is the status of civil and commercial GNSS security today? Which are the threats and risks and how they are mitigated? Where are we going and what shall we expect from the future?
I decided to tackle this topic carefully, using as a basis and inspiration the history of information and communication technology (ICT) security: from the first threats and attacks of the 1980s to a glance at what technology offers today.
Secondly, to obtain different perspectives — and shift the blame to someone else if one day these predictions should prove to be wrong — I solicited the opinions of three other experts and colleagues in the domain of GNSS and security: Logan Scott, Todd Humphreys, and David Last.
The Internet was officially born in 1969 when the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) crated the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). A short 11 years later, the 414 Gang, a computer-hacking organization (the term hacking was coined at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as early as the 1960s) performed one of the first attacks and frauds upon computer systems. In 1983 the first computer virus was discovered. In 1988 the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) was created to report and disseminate information on the threats, and AT&T Bell Labs created the first concept of firewalls. Some readers may recall the 1983 movie War Games, which found Hollywood hard at work on cyber-attacks, denial, and deception to computer systems at a time when we had only six GPS satellites in orbit. One year later, Steven M. Bellovin published a paper on the possibility of performing a transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) Spoofing attack.
Six years after that paper, in 1995, the Computer Incident Advisory Committee (CIAC) reported the first TCP/IP spoofing attack to a system. In another four years, the first denial of service (DoS) attack to computer networks was reported by the CERT. A DoS attack consists of several computer systems sending unsolicited requests to the target, causing a saturation of network and computer resources. In terms of objectives, it could be compared to what jamming causes in GNSS systems.
Between 1984 and 1986, Dorothy Denning and Peter Neumann researched and developed the first model of a real-time intrusion detection system (IDS). This prototype was initially a rule-based expert system trained to detect known malicious activity. I like to think that this could be compared to today’s jamming detection and localization systems.
In the 1990s, the need for guidelines to provide general outlines as well as specific techniques for implementing security became a pressing one for all organizations. The first standard, originally published by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in 1995 was the BS 7799, was later adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as the ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 27000 series.
Information technology today can be security-evaluated via the Common Criteria (CC) standard (ISO/IEC 15408), which allows computer-systems certification. CC is a framework in which computer system users can specify their security functional and assurance requirements. The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140 is an alternative standard for cryptographic modules, developed by the U.S. Federal Information Processing Standards.
The Nessus Project, started by Renaud Deraison in 1998, set as its objective the provision of an open-source vulnerability-assessment tool. Since 2000, Nessus has become one of most popular tools for computer-network security and vulnerability assessment, used by more than 75,000 organizations worldwide.
ICT security today is assured in a lifecycle composed by CERT managing the threats notifications, ISO/IEC 27000 managing the processes, and CC/FIPS 140 defining the security requirements for the system and vulnerability assessment tools to certify the robustness.
Radio-frequency interferences (RFI) or jamming cases can hardly be tracked, as they are difficult to detect and have a long history in the military domain. Recent incidents such the one at Newark International Airport show that the threat is increasing and demonstrate the need for mitigation strategies. GNSS signal falsification frauds, or spoofing, seems to as yet have no evident cases in the civil domain.
The Volpe Report of September 10, 2001 is one of the first government public announcements of GNSS threats, including jamming and spoofing. More than 10 years, later the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) experiment coordinated by Todd Humphreys at the University of Texas proved that such attacks are feasible.
In GNSS, jamming detection (and sometime mitigation) are nowadays commercial options for some professional and mass-market GNSS receivers. Spoofing detection has been available in commercial prototype receivers since 2008 (among others, the Trusted GNSS Receiver (TIGER) funded by the European GNSS Agency. In 2012 we have seen the presentation of the first civil GNSS security testbed. For examples of the latter, see the University of Texas TEXBAT initiative, mentioned on page 37, and the GNSS Authentication and User Protection System Simulator (GAUPSS) project, which involved the development of software and algorithms that were integrated and tested in the radio navigation laboratory of the European Space Agency/ European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESA/ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
I will make the assertion that compared to ICT security, civil GNSS security seems to be reliving the early days of the 1980s: first publication of attack concepts, first publicly known attacks, no standards, and only prototype mitigation strategies. With a gap of almost 30 years, at least four mid-Earth orbit GNSS systems becoming operational in the next few years, and an annual 10 percent growth rate of GNSS applications, the era of civil GNSS security begins now.
Logan Scott is a consultant specializing in radio-frequency signal processing and waveform design for communications, navigation, radar, and emitter location. His opinion on the future threat leaves no doubts:
“In assessing security threats, an important starting question is ‘Why would someone do that?’ If there is no motivation, chances are, there won’t be an attack. Over the last five years or so, the combination of ubiquitous, low-cost communications systems and satellite navigation has moved civil GNSS positioning and timing into use domains where there are stronger motivations for an attack. Specifically, widespread use in asset monitoring and tracking encourages jamming attacks and so, we are seeing more such attack. As GNSS becomes more deeply embedded into societal infrastructure, we can expect to see more attacks of increasing sophistication. Motivation will be there.”
David Last is a consultant engineer and expert witness specializing in radio-navigation and communications systems. He operates in the domain of covert tracking and law enforcement,, an area where interference can be tempting. As expert in the field, and to the best of his knowledge, he believes that “although there are some cases of jamming, we have seen no events of spoofing — so far. To date, all we have seen from criminals are crude jamming attacks. Attacks by technically sophisticated aggressors who understand GNSS vulnerability have yet to start. They will be much more serious.
“Furthermore, when the receiver stops receiving data in a court case, we can’t say it’s jamming: we can mention that is one of the things that stops the signal. Law enforcement is now beginning to use receivers that can perform jamming detection.”
David Last’s opinion on the issue of potential low-cost spoofers appearing in the near future was also provocative: “Criminals don’t buy things, they steal them.”
An ICT security standard arrived about 10 years after the first publication and case reports of attacks. Are we at the right time, now, to consider security certification of GNSS receivers?
Logan Scott’s opinion is that receivers should be certified in order to provide awareness of the attacks:
“Today, essentially all houses and buildings have smoke alarms. Smoke alarms don’t put out fires but they do alert the occupants to the probability that there is a problem. Similarly, GNSS receiver situation awareness regarding jamming and spoofing is a first step towards militating against attacks on GNSS components. As civil receivers stand today, many don’t discriminate between loss of lock due to signal attenuation and loss of lock due to jamming. This needs to change.
“Fairly simple algorithms can detect most types of jamming and spoofing. Jammers and simple spoofers almost invariably affect automatic gain control gain settings. They are easy to detect. More sophisticated spoofers have difficulty covering apparent direction of arrival and can be detected using some simple antenna techniques.
“The problem for the user community at large is in knowing whether or not a receiver maintains adequate situational awareness. This is where test-based receiver certification can play a role.”
Awareness is indeed needed to notify to the application the security and authentication state. GNSS authentication integrated in the system still lies far off.
Not only is implementing authentication without compromising user cost and simplicity challenging, but the impact on the ground and space segment in GNSS to maintain legacy signals compatibility is also considerable.
We believe that user-based authentication will be the Plan B for the next 5–10 years. This requires the development of receiver techniques and the use of security testbeds as the baseline for vulnerability assessment, in the same way the Nessus tool was used in the 1990s for computer network assessment.
On the test approach, Logan Scott stresses that “Using a series of canned scenarios, GNSS receivers can be tested to determine how well they maintain situational awareness. Do well enough, and the receiver can be stamped as certified, much like an Underwriters Laboratory (UL) label. The test process can be automated and conducted by an independent third party, similar to the way cellular equipment is certified.
“Additional certifications might include cyber security aspects such as accepting only digitally-signed software updates and maps, providing attestation capabilities, and use of authenticatable GNSS signals.
“The benefit for the non-expert user community is that they have a basis for selecting GNSS receivers, secure in the knowledge that they meet minimum performance standards.”
Ringing in my third fellow expert, I asked Todd Humphreys, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, for his opinion regarding the future of GNSS security testing.
“A testbed capable of simulating realistic spoofing attacks is needed so that the efficacy of proposed civil GPS signal authentication techniques can be experimentally evaluated. A generic testbed capable of evaluating all known authentication techniques would be prohibitively expensive; for example, it would require a large anechoic chamber for evaluating receiver-autonomous antenna-oriented techniques. But if the scope of evaluation is limited to receiver-autonomous signal-processing-oriented techniques and networked techniques, then it is possible not only to develop an inexpensive testbed but to share the testbed’s data component so that the tests can be replicated in laboratories across the globe.
“In October, we released the Texas Spoofing Test Battery (TEXBAT), a set of six high-fidelity digital recordings of live static and dynamic GPS L1 C/A spoofing tests conducted by the Radionavigation Laboratory of the University of Texas at Austin. National Instruments is hosting TEXBAT on cloud servers so that anyone can download it.
“The battery can be considered the data component of an evolving standard meant to define the notion of spoof resistance for civil GPS receivers. According to this standard, successful detection of or imperviousness to all spoofing attacks in TEXBAT, or a future version thereof, could be considered sufficient to certify a civil GPS receiver as spoof-resistant.
“This is a spoofing-specific version of the ‘not stupid’ certification that Logan Scott has suggested for GNSS receivers. In my July congressional testimony, I advocated requiring a ‘spoof resistance’ certification for GNSS devices that are used in critical infrastructure.”
Now I turn and attempt to answer the final question: Can we predict the future of civil GNSS security?
I believe that we can predict that, unfortunately, attacks will increase, and new attacks will be discovered. For example, we have been talking about deception jammers (also known as intelligent, PRN, or gold code jammers) only in the last few years, as an emerging threat. We will see certification and standards for security in GNSS, and we expect them to come in the next five years. Tools for GNSS security testing are already available commercially, for example the Qascom GNSS Security testbed (GST). As ICT has CERT for notification of threat, we will also see the raising of a GNSS emergency response team — possibly called a GERT.
In conclusion, whether my predictions turn out to be correct or not, the good news is that GNSS security also has a history in Hollywood’s annals: the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies narrates a spoofing attack on the GPS navigation system of a submarine, performed via a GPS encoder that modifies the time.
Again, 007 anticipated the future, and he did it 15 years before a handful of world renowned GNSS security experts.
I have not yet seen the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall. I wonder what it portends?
Oscar Pozzobon is the director and co-founder of Qascom S.r.l., based in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. He received a Masters degree in telecommunication engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia, and is the Italian contact for the Civil Global Positioning System Service Interface Committee (CGSIC).
By Keoki Jackson
The history of GNSS shows each year has always been more successful than the year prior, and in 2013 we expect the trend to continue. In the United States, the role of GPS will continue to expand, and the applications for our technology will reach sectors we never imagined. As our international partner countries continue to launch GNSS satellites, and user equipment develops further, our community will increase its globalization, and international cooperation will reach new heights.
At the same time, our industry will see its fair share of challenges. We anticipate several significant trends to be further defined next year.
First, in the satellite world, affordability will be the name of the game. There is no disputing that the U.S. government is in austere budget times, and the Air Force will be asked to do more in acquiring GPS space, ground, and military user equipment, with fewer resources. Industry will partner with the Air Force in this new reality, and on the satellite manufacturing side, industry and government will need to demonstrate reduced costs, while sustaining the constellation and posturing for future demands.
It is no secret that military operations depend on GPS, and adversaries are working aggressively to erode the GPS combat advantage with low-cost jamming devices, spoofing concepts, or cyber attacks. On the user demand side, we expect the need for anti-jamming capability to become even more critical for military users. We also expect users to demand better accuracy and integrity, both in the military and civil communities. In 2013, the United States must secure its critical modernization efforts to meet these demands and bolster the space, ground, and user architecture against potential threats.
For us at Lockheed Martin, the message is clear. The threats and demands for enhanced capability are real, but the budget to meet those demands is shrinking. This presents a challenge, but we believe 2013 is the year we meet the challenge and position for the future.
GPS III, the Air Force’s next generation GPS satellite system, is a central part of the modernized solutions for the challenges laid out above. GPS III is the most affordable way to meet the increasing demand from users, while also prudently posturing the enterprise for the future. In 2013, we intend to prove that.
Space acquisition has weathered painful challenges in the past — that is not news — but the Air Force laid out the GPS III acquisition plan to reverse the trend and regain acquisition confidence. Leveraging hard-won lessons, the Air Force instilled a “back-to-basics” acquisition approach to provide better mission assurance, cost confidence, and schedule predictability. The approach emphasizes early investments in rigorous systems engineering, industry-leading parts standards, and the development of a fully functional GPS III satellite pathfinder to retire risks early and lower overall program costs. These investments early in the GPS III program were designed to prevent the types of engineering issues discovered on other programs late in the flight vehicle manufacturing process or even on orbit.
The question in 2013 will be, “Is back-to-basics working?” — and we intend to show continued evidence of success next year. We will complete work on the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST), our full-sized GPS III satellite prototype. We will ship it to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, for pathfinding activities at the launch site as we complete integration of the first space vehicle in our highly efficient GPS Processing Facility. The GNST is used to identify and solve development issues prior to integration and test of the first space vehicle. This will be a major milestone, putting the GNSS community on the cusp of fielding a new generation of PNT capabilities through very efficient and affordable production for all GPS III satellites.
Further proving out the back-to-basics acquisition approach, in 2013 we will be converting our options to build the next eight GPS III satellites to a fixed price contract structure, rather than cost-plus. This transition will limit the government’s risk and significantly contribute to Air Force affordability goals. The back-to-basics acquisition strategy and the progress we have already made on our GPS III prototype give us high confidence in our ability to perform efficient and affordable fixed-price satellite production going forward.
As the austere budget environment is amplified in 2013, we will focus our attention on our GPS III program performance while aggressively pursuing affordability and efficiency initiatives to ensure we are providing great value to the end user while being the best possible stewards of the American public’s investment.
Affordability is one challenge; the other is meeting user demands. While the first GPS III satellites will bring on significant new capabilities, including improved accuracy, better anti-jam power, and a new civil signal to be interoperable with international GNSS systems, we do need to continue planning for technology upgrades in the future.
The Air Force laid out the GPS III program from the very beginning with evolution in mind — and the GPS III satellites have pre-architected capacity to add new capabilities and technologies affordably and with low risk. The acquisition plan calls for technology insertion beginning on the ninth satellite. 2013 will be a critical year in finalizing the production schedule for the capability insertion program.
We look at technology insertion in two ways: technology to reduce costs and technology to increase capabilities. To that end, we are developing dual launch, higher anti-jam signal power for the military, a new search and rescue payload, a digital navigation payload with the capability to incorporate new signals after launch, real time command and control cross links to improve system accuracy and a host of other innovations.
The timing for when these new capabilities will be on ramped onto new satellites will be determined by user demands and technical maturity. In 2013, we will be working very closely with the Air Force to implement a low risk ongoing modernization program to ensure GPS III meets the needs of users for decades to come while maintaining or reducing the per unit cost of a GPS III satellite.
In the uncertain and challenging environment of 2013 and beyond, GNSS technology will certainly continue to improve. User demand will increase significantly, while the resources to meet those demands will remain stable or decline. It is a tough challenge, but the GNSS industry has not disappointed yet, and we do not expect anything different in 2013 and beyond.
Dana (Keoki) Jackson is vice president of Navigation Systems in Space Systems Company’s Military Space line of business for Lockheed Martin Corporation. He is responsible for leading all aspects of the next-generation GPS III navigation satellite program for the United States Air Force, as well as operations and sustainment of the GPS IIR and IIRM satellites. Prior to joining Lockheed Martin, he was a NASA research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducting Space Shuttle flight experiments in the field of human adaptation to the space environment. He has a doctoral degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics fromthe Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In my vision of the future of GNSS, I see a pressing need to manage radio-frequency spectrum more efficiently. This will drive the creation of official standards for GNSS receivers, and better design of those receivers with better filters at lower cost, to protect against out-of-band and near-band interference. This in turn will enable user to undertake widespread monitoring and reporting of in-band interference, and create the freedom for many technologies to explore wider and more productive use of all bands of the radio-frequency spectrum.
As a consequence of unprecedented technological development on all fronts and in many fields, the radio-frequency spectrum is very congested. All countries, and the United States in particular, must find ways to use this spectrum more efficiently. Licenses for spectrum bands are very expensive, and special interest groups do all they can to secure ownership of any part of the spectrum and to prevent others from competing with them. There is an intense struggle going on, both behind the scenes and in the public arena; it has been called “the spectrum wars.” These involve big companies, very high stakes, politicians, and special interest groups. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seems caught, powerless, in the crossfire between these powerhouses.
GNSS interference exists everywhere and comes from many different sources, identified and unidentified, intentional or unintentional. The 1-dB effect on GNSS of the proposed LightSquared signal is negligible compared to what already exists. The reason that the LightSquared plan encountered so much opposition was not because of its effect on GNSS. It was because of its effect on the competing business models of large companies and special interest groups.
With the tools that we have created and embedded in our receivers, everyone can easily see that widespread interference already exists in most places, especially in cities, and that interferences can easily be monitored and automatically reported. It seems no organization has ownership of regularly monitoring interferences on these bands and taking corrective actions. This is partly because the tools to easily monitor and report interferences did not exist earlier.
Current GNSS receivers on the market and in use around the world rely on inadequate designs. The technology does in fact exist to overcome out-of-band interference problems such as LightSquared and many others commonly encountered in today’s congested radio-frequency environment. There is no reason to prohibit others from using bands near GNSS; this just makes spectrum use inefficient. Continued shipping of inadequate, inefficient receivers by current manufacturers only increases and compounds the problems encountered by users.
There are standards for manufacturing countless industrial goods — for example, something as ordinary as car tires or — but there is no standard for building GNSS receivers that will be used in critical applications.
So far, the FCC has been silent on this topic, and has not established guidelines for GNSS receivers that are used in critical applications. The civilian users of GNSS, such as the U.S. National Geodetic Survey, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Aviation Administration, and so on, have criteria for all sorts of little equipment, but there is no criteria for GNSS receivers that they claim are so important for their job.
Instead of taking the proactive and productive approach of putting filters into the receivers that they use, these organizations advocate keeping spectrum bands adjacent to GNSS off-limits to other users. Manufacturers do not see any reason to make better receivers while such a powerful lobby protects them.
Interference monitoring and reporting is strongly desirable for places such as GNSS reference stations, or for users to see the interferences before they start a jog that they are tracking on their GPS-enabled personal training device — just as pilots check the weather before they take off.
The problem that LightSquared encountered was that its proposal impacted the business models of special interest groups. Although we — that is, JAVAD GNSS in presentations before the FCC in Washington DC — showed that other interferences exist in cities, the FCC did not care, and GNSS magazine editors did not care. They just blindly followed what the special interest groups had planned for them.
Brad Parkinson, in his article “PNT for the Nation: Three Key Attributes and Nine Druthers” in the October issue of GPS World, did not even hint at guidelines for building GNSS receivers. This is similar to formulating guideline on how to build and clean the roads while having no guidelines on how to build tires that are going to ride on the roads.
In Parkinson’s long list of recommendations, there was no mention at all that we need to build better GNSS receivers and be able to monitor interferences. There are guidelines and standards for how build every little item, but none for GNSS receivers that are claimed to be so essential for our security and prosperity.
Military GPS receivers do not have protection against even one particular type of interference such as that posed by LightSquared — and the suggested approach was to bomb such interferences, which most admit that of course cannot be done. This is a bad attitude. The cost of a filter in a receiver is almost nothing. A precision bomb costs millions if you factor in development costs, and deployment and delivery puts the full cost even higher.
The case is similar for GNSS receivers used in commercial airplanes. Instead of pushing for a better GNSS receiver design, the FAA simply hopes that interference does not happen.
These are my predictions — and my strongest possible recommendations — for the future of GNSS.
I am proud to be a part of the efforts to make these happen, against all odds.
Javad Ashjaee received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Iowa. He was chairman of the Computer Engineering Department, Tehran University of Technology, 1976-1981. He began his GPS engineering career at Trimble Navigation, 1981–1986. Founder and president of Ashtech Inc., 1986–1995, the company that produced the first integrated GPS-GLONASS receivers; founder and CEO of Javad Positioning Systems, 1996–2000, which he sold to Topcon Corporation. He founded JAVAD GNSS in 2007, and is currently president and CEO. In 2010, the company introduced the integrated geodetic receiver TRIUMPH-VS, with a GNSS Interference Analyzer, capable of tracking current and next-generation signals of GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, and Galileo signals. In 2011, the company introduced a LightSquared-compatible GNSS receiver.
Our first mistake is to presume an environment of perfection and security. Nothing is foolproof and spoof-free. Every product or service is an envelope of packaging that can be opened, peeled back, reversed engineered, and replicated. I have seen “ultimate security” defeated repeatedly.
GPS is no exception, of course. We put our signatures and seals on these things; enterprising competitors, adversaries, and curious people find a way to steam open our envelopes, create seals indistinguishable from the original, or simply use products in ways unexpected.
We exist in a world headed pell-mell toward the product consumerization, as GPS World tells us, as if this is new. We BYOD [bring your own device, a business policy of employees bringing personally owned mobile devices to their place of work and using those devices to access privileged company resources such as email, file servers, and databases, as well as their personal applications and data. — Ed.] to work with its purchase by credit card and reimbursement by petty cash. This is nothing new than a newer terminology for mass-merchandizing.
Wars will be fought that way too, as if they always weren’t. Soldiers built their own grenades, brought their own weapons, horses, uniforms, and food to the contested game … always. Patton had his own pair of pearl-handled Colt sidearms.
The pressure for encrypted GPS and inconvenient milspec devices misses this reality. Our every weapon will fail unintentionally, get repurposed by knowledgeable adversaries, and be turned intentionally against us. We cannot engineer away these consequences. We can only be better readers. We must be flexible competitors. We have to be open to the reality that everything fails in ways we will not anticipate but should expect.
War is not fought in rows with toy soldiers equal and alike arrayed with fair rules. Fourth generation warfare is here. War is an expediency when diplomacy, economics, and reason fail with adversaries and friends alike. It is fought with a dangerous expediency.
— Marty Nemzow
Miami, Florida
One of the GNSS controversies of the past year ended, not with a bang nor with a whimper, but like the fog, silently creeping away on its little cat feet. The UK patent applications against the interoperative GPS/Galileo signal design appear to have been dropped.
Vague rumblings emerged throughout spring and summer this year that two British technologists, backed by the U.K. Ministry Defense, had filed patents on the future interoperable GPS and Galileo binary-offset carrier signal designs. If granted and enforced, the patents would have severely disrupted modernization plans for both systems and levied unexpected costs upon receiver manufacturers. A company called Ploughshare Innovations Ltd. started contacting manufacturers and asking for payment of royalties, based on the patent filings.
After significant uproar and negotiations before and behind the scenes, it now appears that the initiative has been quietly scuttled. The U.S. Patent Office file on application number 11/774,412, Modulation Signals for a Satellite Navigation System, on the Patent Office’s website, now reads “Expressly Abandoned — During Examination.” The status is dated September 16, 2012, some time ago, but none of the parties involved, whether as filers or negotiators, has made any public announcement about it.
Both Sides Now. Checking the European Patent Office and its registry — which is no trivial task of website navigation — turns up a note, dated September 24, under the docket for EP1830199, Modulations Signals for a Satellite Navigation System. The note states “Patent surrendered.” A few days later, another note: “Lapsed in a contracting state announced via postgrant inform. From Nat. Office to EPO,” with further information to the effect of “lapse because of failure to submit a translation or the description or to pay the fee within the prescribed time limit.”
For good measure, a final docket note on October 3: “Lapsed due to resignation by the proprietor.”
The Lockheed Martin team developing the U.S. Air Force’s GPS III satellites has completed thermal vacuum testing for the Navigation Payload Element (NPE) of the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST). The milestone is one of several environmental tests verifying the navigation payload’s quality of workmanship and increased performance compared to the current generation of satellites.
During thermal vacuum testing, the navigation payload’s performance was proven in a vacuum environment at the extreme hot and cold temperatures it will experience on orbit to ensure it will operate as planned once in space. Following the test, the NPE will now be integrated with the GNST for final satellite level testing.
The GNST is a full-sized prototype of a GPS III satellite used to identify and solve development issues prior to integration and test of the first space vehicle. The approach significantly reduces risk, improves production predictability, increases mission assurance and lowers overall program costs. Following integration and test at Lockheed Martin’s GPS Processing Facility (GPF) near Denver, the GNST will be shipped to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, for risk reduction activities at the launch site.
Lockheed Martin is on contract to deliver the first four GPS III satellites for launch. The Air Force plans to purchase up to 32 GPS III satellites.
The Galileo In-Orbit Validation (IOV) satellites launched on October 12 (Flight Model 3 and 4), have now been positioned in their designated orbits, according to tracking data from the U.S. Joint Space Operations Center. A plot of the IOV constellation is now available at http://gge.unb.ca/test/Galileo.argper.690.432000.pdf.
The four IOV satellites are in two orbital planes separated by about 120 degrees. Within each plane, the satellites are separated by about 40 degrees. This orbital arrangement will allow the four satellites to be simultaneously tracked for periods of time by GNSS monitoring stations, permitting positioning tests using only IOV data to be carried out. However, no signals from FM3 or FM4 have yet been detected by stations of the International GNSS Service.
By Werner Enderle
The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany operates spacecraft on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA) and maintains the ground facilities and expertise for ESA and other institutional and commercial customers. ESOC is composed of two departments: the Mission Operations Department and the Ground Systems Engineering Department, of which the Navigation Support Office is an integral part. The main objectives of the Navigation Support Office (NSO)are the provision of expertise for high-accuracy navigation, satellite geodesy, and the generation of related products and services for all ESA missions and for third-party customers, as well as supporting the European GNSS Programmes: Galileo and EGNOS.
In 2013, the NSO will conduct a number of projects and activities, described here.
The Navigation Office provides support in the area of data processing and analysis, performance analysis. It performs operational orbit predictions for the International Satellite Laser Ranging Service (ILRS), operational precise/rapid orbit and clock determination, computation of antenna patterns, and provides support to Galileo Sensor Stations (GSS) site deployment and to Ranging and Integrity Monitoring Station (RIMS) deployment. It also provides consultancy on modeling and data processing, mission analysis for the constellation, orbit validation activities for orbits and clocks, ionosphere, group delays, and intersystem biases, and is involved in the generation of the Galileo Geodetic Reference Frame. Furthermore, the Office participated in European Commission studies for the Galileo Commercial Service.
A number of European and American missions have been equipped with radar altimeter instruments that observe the level of the sea surface from space. To do this, the height component of the satellite orbits needs to be determined with centimeter-accuracy, matching the accuracy of the altimeter observations. The NSO provides support to Precise Orbit Determination (POD), evaluation, analysis and improvement of models and standards, as well as instrument calibration (radar altimeter and GNSS antenna).
Examples of missions already supported include ERS, Envisat, Cryosat, GOCE and also non-ESA missions JASON 1&2. Solutions with multiple simultaneous data types (GNSS, SLR, DORIS, altimetry, S-band range, Doppler, and angle tracking) are typically performed, allowing the alignment of different reference frames and estimation of inter-system and instrument biases. Based on all these capabilities, the NSO is one of the leading institutions for low-Earth orbiting (LEO) satellite POD activities and very well suited for supporting the upcoming European programme for Earth Observation, called Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and its related Sentinel satellite missions.
The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is part of the European contribution to the International Space Station (ISS) program. The main tasks of the ATV are to provide logistics supply, station re-boost and ISS waste retrieval. The rendezvous of the ATV and ISS is based on a real-time on-board relative navigation concept, using GPS data from receivers of ISS and ATV. The NSO conducts in this context simulations before the flight and also post facto performance analysis of the relative orbit determination accuracy to support the ATV missions.
An important atmospheric application of GNSS data is the monitoring of ionospheric activity (total electron content or TEC). Dual-frequency GNSS signals enable direct measurement of this parameter, and by merging the data from hundreds of globally distributed GPS receivers, detailed maps of the TEC and its evolution as a function of time can be constructed. Such maps have been computed routinely for many years. FIGURE 1 shows an example. The importance of these products lies in the fact that high solar activity leads to high TEC values, which can seriously disturb satellite communications. The NSO provides ionospheric TEC maps to the scientific community.
ESA/ESOC was one of the founding members of the IGS, and at the time the NSO was implemented at ESOC, all of the IGS activities were transferred to the NSO. ESA Analysis Centre products are among the best products available from the individual IGS analysis centres. Secondly, the ESA products are among the few multi-constellation GNSS products. ESA was the first IGS analysis centre to provide a consistent set of orbit and clock products for all available GNSS satellites. These products constituted the very first products that have been used for true GNSS precise point positioning.
The sampling rate of the ESA final GPS+GLONASS clock product is 30 seconds. FIGURE 2 shows the statistics of a kinematic PPP analysis using the ESA GNSS clocks for three different cases. The ESA/ESOC IGS Analysis centre contributes to all of the core IGS analysis centre products: Final GNSS (GPS+GLONASS) products provided weekly based on 24-hour solutions using 150 stations from true GNSS solutions simultaneously and fully consistently processing GPS and GLONASS measurements for a total of around 55 satellites, consisting of orbits, clocks, coordinates, ionosphere, and Earth-orientation parameters (EOPs). Also Rapid GNSS (GPS+GLONASS) products (available within 3 hours after the end of the observation day) and Ultra-Rapid GNSS (GPS+GLONASS) products (4 times per day, available within 3 hours after the end of the observation interval) are provided. These products are publicly available to the scientific community, being published at several data servers, such as the CDDIS at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. They are also finding very frequent application in testing of experimental and commercial applications, and have become the standard reference for all high-precision GNSS applications.
Different customers have different needs. One important customer for the Navigation Facility is the Metop mission operated by EUMETSAT. For the exploitation of its GNSS Receiver for Atmospheric Sounding (GRAS) payload, which delivers atmospheric profiles to the European Met offices, EUMETSAT requires GPS products with a guarantee on accuracy, availability and latency. To deliver this service, the Navigation Facility now hosts the operation of the GRAS Ground Support Network (GSN), which is a dedicated network of 45 stations. It has been operating successfully for five years, delivering products with a latency of only 45 minutes, and an availability of better than 99 percent. Based on these, EUMETSAT delivers a daily set of more than 500 atmospheric profiles (and double that number as soon as Metop-2 will be operational) to the European Met offices, a data set that has already become one of the key elements in numerical weather prediction.
Over the last 10 years, ESOC has embarked on a program to build a Real Time GNSS software infrastructure. The main justification for this effort is the realization that the delivery of precise GNSS products in real-time processing will become increasingly more important for the user community. ESOC needs to be at the forefront of these developments, particularly with respect to products related to Galileo. The system for REal TIme NAvigation (RETINA) has been modelled after ESOC’s experience in real-time satellite control systems and includes many of the elements for data processing, archiving, and visualization that are common to such systems. In particular, it implements a specially designed circular filing system for streaming data, allowing maintenance-free operations for processing and archiving of data and products, and seamless transitions from historical to live data processing.
The investment in GNSS software and receiver infrastructure has enabled ESOC to participate in the IGS Real Time Pilot Project, assuming the roles of Real Time Analysis Centre and Analysis Centre Coordinator. In the latter role, ESOC has been generating and disseminating the IGS Real Time Combination stream after processing the real-time solutions from up to ten analysis centres. Included in these solutions are two streams generated by the ESOC Real Time Analysis Centre.
Participation in the IGS Real Time activities has stimulated ESOC’s involvement in the development of standards and formats for GNSS data and products. ESOC has been instrumental in the decision of the IGS to join the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services (RTCM), which is the primary standards setting organisation for real-time GNSS services. ESOC is now one of two agencies that represent the IGS at the RTCM meetings.
Work with the RTCM focuses on:
To comply with the main objectives of the NSO, the main pillars of expertise and areas of activities can be summarized as:
ESOC’s ESOC’s Navigation Facility (see FIGURE 3) provides a fully operational environment, compliant with ESA’s ECSS ground segment standards. The Navigation Facility consists of a control room including secure operational LAN (ESACERT against intruders from outside) with two physically separated computer and data centres for redundancy purposes and a globally distributed operational real time sensor station network (see FIGURE 4). An operational system availability of more than 99.9 percent on a 24/7 basis measured over the last 5 years (products delivered every 15 minutes) has been demonstrated.
Currently the sensor station network consists of 12 sites, but ESOC is extending the global network to at least 25 sites. Negotiations with new sites are currently ongoing or near completion. The objective is to deploy a homogeneous (all sites will have the same receiver and same antenna type) sensor station network by the third quarter of 2013. The deployment of new equipment on existing sites began in April 2012, and first results are very promising. The new type of geodetic quality GNSS receiver has been chosen, based on an internal selection process, and deployment is under way. Each receiver has 264 physical channels, is capable of multi-signal, multi-frequency and multi-constellation tracking and will be remotely controlled from the Navigation Facility at ESOC.
The NSO develops, maintains and operates a range of software packages and tools for high-precision orbit- and clock determination and prediction. The software capability also includes the estimation of station coordinates, Earth-orientation parameters, model parameters (radiation pressure, drag, and so on), ionosphere, troposphere, instrument biases, intersystem biases, ambiguities and antenna phase-centre variations based on state-of-the-art models and standards (for example, IERS, ITRF).
The main software packages used within the NSO are:
In this context it is important to mention that ESA owns all the intellectual property rights to these software packages and that licences for operationally qualified software can be released on request to European companies, universities and R&D 0rganisations (currently only NAPEOS).
Summary and Outlook
The Navigation Support Office offers a combination of different capabilities, namely highest quality software, tools for real-time and batch processing ( the Office is the only analysis centre capable of processing three different geodetic techniques within a single software package), operation of own global GNSS sensor station network and demonstrated operational experience for mission support and provision of services. Operations are conducted in a controlled environment, fully in accordance with ESA safety and security standards.
The Navigation Support Office is ready for multi-frequency, multi-signal and multi constellation GNSS data processing. The Office is involved and strongly committed to support Galileo and EGNOS. In this context, the Office will soon become the consortium leader for the provision of the Galileo Geodetic Reference Frame.
Concerning the participation to international GNSS activities like IGS, ICG and GNSS standardisation aspects, the Navigation Support Office intends to continue its support for the foreseeable future.
In the area of LEO POD, the Navigation Support Office offers POD capability for all types of LEO satellites. For this reason, the Office intends to play a major role in the precise orbit determination activities for the European GMES Sentinel satellite missions.
Finally, the Navigation Support Office also intends to increase its capabilities related to navigation concepts for high-precision satellite formation flying and satellite constellations, via specific research and development activities. The aim is to maintain and expand its capabilities as a very attractive partner with cutting edge know-how and technology for the support of ESA activities and European industry.
Werner Enderle is the head of the Navigation Support Office at ESA\ESOC. Previously, he worked at the European GNSS Authority (GSA) as the Head of System Evolutions. He also worked for the European Commission, in charge of the procurement for the Galileo Ground Control Segment. He holds a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany.
Co-authors: Rene Zandbergen, Tim Springer, and Loukis Agrotis.
Editor’s Note: This article reproduces the acceptance speeches given by the winners of GPS World’s 2012 Leadership Awards, at the Leadership Dinner in Nashville in September. The Leadership Dinner was sponsored by Lockheed Martin and Deimos Space.
Remarks by Waldemar Kunysz
Senior Staff Engineer, winner in the Services category. He works on Wide-Area Positioning System (WAPS) design and implementation in the continental United States. He spent the previous 16 years with NovAtel, Inc., working on various research projects and novel antenna designs.
I am much honored to receive this award and recognition. It means a lot to me.
I would like to thank the people who made a difference in my career. Without them it would not be possible for me to be here.
First I am grateful to Dr. Maurice Meyer, former MIT professor. He taught me the black magic of antenna engineering. I am quite sure that his spirit guided me when I invented the GPS/GNSS Pinwheel antenna when working at NovAtel, for which I received six patents.
I also would like to thank Prof. Gerard Lachapelle and Dr. AJ Van Dierendock for teaching me GPS technology and Dr. Phillip Ward for providing very useful insight on the subject of interference. That knowledge saved me countless hours when troubleshooting some system-level issues while designing current and past GPS/GNSS products.
Currently I am working at NextNav LLC, developing technologies related to NextNav’s new terrestrial based Wide Area Positioning System (WAPS). Founded in 2008 and based in Sunnyvale, California, NextNav has designed a new positioning system that is being initially deployed across the United States, although we anticipate taking our technology to global markets in the future. In its short life, in addition to developing the technology necessary for a timing-based, high-accuracy terrestrial positioning system, NextNav has already established a network presence in 40 of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas. This system allows the reception of a GPS-like signal in the areas where satellite coverage is weak or non-existent, such as indoors or in dense urban developments, that is, downtowns, urban canyons, and so on. We already have completed a fully-deployed service capability in the San Francisco Bay area that enables consistently accurate indoor and outdoor positioning anywhere from San Francisco to San Jose, and we are growing our network footprint across the United States. We are also very excited to have developed a height system that has demonstrated consistent floor-level accuracy, a feature that is particularly valuable indoors.
As we know, all major terrestrial systems, such as Loran, Omega and Decca, have been shut down in the past several years. We have become very dependent on satellite-based services such as GPS and GLONASS without any terrestrially-based back-up. Any major solar storm in the future could be very disruptive to this service, so having a terrestrial-based system that is in sync with the satellite-based system will fill that void. And of course, a terrestrial system can be maintained and improved on a significantly shorter schedule, with significantly lower cost, than a space-based system. NextNav really provides an excellent complement to GPS.
The future looks very bright for the positioning service industry. In my opinion, by 2020 it will become another ubiquitously-available utility such as phone or power. I’d like to agree with my other awardee and predict that in 2020 we will be able to have a carrier-based positioning accuracy anywhere and anytime, available from any devices including handheld units. You will know where all your assets are and you won’t need to post a question to your wife: “Honey, did you see where my tie is?” Your personal digital assistant will locate it for you.
Thanks again.
Editor’s Note: This article reproduces the acceptance speeches given by the winners of GPS World’s 2012 Leadership Awards, at the Leadership Dinner in Nashville in September. The Leadership Dinner was sponsored by Lockheed Martin and Deimos Space.
Martin Unwin, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited; Principal GNSS Engineer, winner in the Satellites category. He is a key member of the team that built the GIOVE-A satellite (recently retired) and is now working on the Galileo FOC satellites. He is also recognized for his work on space-borne receivers.
I feel privileged and honored to receive this award from GPS World, and I am truly sorry now that I chose this year not to attend the ION-GNSS conference to receive it!
With respect to the achievements in GIOVE-A and Galileo, I cannot claim this award on behalf of myself, but I will claim it on behalf of the people in Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) who made the projects possible, and to those in the team here who have been working tirelessly to make the payloads and satellites happen. We are of course partnered with others in Europe that have been laboring equally hard, so it has been a true team effort.
With respect to the spaceborne GPS and GNSS activities, my achievements have only been possible thanks to the top-class staff we have in the receivers team, and thanks are also due to the support we have had from the rest of SSTL.
In the 20 years I have been in the company, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd has grown from a small university-based department to a major player in the international space scene, and I am immensely proud to have been part of this story.
Whilst it cannot quite match the early heady days of GPS, I still think nevertheless we are entering an exciting time in the GNSS world. We have two operational systems, and within a few years, we will be seeing two more reaching operational capability. Dual- and even triple-frequency civil signals will soon become operationally available, and some very wide bandwidth signals will be sent down, in particular, by Galileo. There is bound to be a steep learning curve in understanding how to exploit these new signals, with a few crevasses to be negotiated during the climb. But these new signals are bound to lead to an expanded vista of increased accuracy and robustness, and undoubtedly some unexpected destinations.
Taking perhaps the highest perspective, spaceborne remote sensing is a good example that has surprising relevance to the rest of us still on the ground. In this case, GNSS satellites are used as radar sources, and all that is required on a low-Earth orbiting (LEO) satellite to change the world is a GNSS receiver. GPS radio-occultation measurements from low-Earth orbit are now already the third most important data source for our global weather forecasts, thanks to the like of the COSMIC and MetOp satellites.
Furthermore, a new constellation of satellites called CYGNSS has recently announced by NASA that will be using ocean-reflected GPS signals to probe inside hurricanes and typhoons, and for the first time will enable the sensing of the wide-scale ocean roughness, leading to improved global wind and wave knowledge. By adding to this spaceborne receiver the ability to accommodate signals from GLONASS, Galileo, and Compass, plus any other available GNSS-type signals, the number of measurements is instantly quadrupled, and a new capability in sensing the atmosphere, waves, and even ice and land is likely to be seen. Meteorologists already view GPS as an emerging utility for weather and climate sensing, but I think this new role for GNSS will be reinforced and expanded into yet another area where GNSS incontrovertibly, if indirectly, makes such a significant difference to our daily lives.
As with many other applications where GNSS has become important or even critical to our modern world, this is, at the same time, both a blessing and a matter for some caution.