More than $20 million for research on unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) was included in an appropriations package that Congress passed and the president signed into law last week to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. The funding for UAS research is $2.67 million more than last year’s budget request by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to address a host of research challenges associated with integrating UAS into the national airspace system.
The measure’s section on appropriations for transportation agencies also includes $20 million above the 2016 budget request for the FAA’s air traffic control organization. The increase will provide for the hiring and training of new controllers and accelerating UAS airspace integration. The agreement also includes $11.5 million more than was requested for aviation safety activities for UAS integration, including the addition of six full-time positions to support the certification of new technologies and advance the FAA’s organizational delegation authorization (ODA) efforts and strengthen safety oversight.
As government agencies expand their use of cell-site simulators or “stingrays” and other digital tracking technology, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Rep. John Conyers, Jr., D-Mich., introduced the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act (known as the GPS act) to create clear rules for when agencies can access and track an individual’s geolocation information.
Chaffetz introduced the House version of the bill on March 6, with four Republican and three Democratic cosponsors. Wyden introduced the Senate bill Feb. 15.
Courts have issued conflicting opinions about whether the government needs a warrant to track Americans through their cell phones and other GPS devices. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2012’s U.S. vs. Jones case that attaching a GPS tracking device to a vehicle requires a warrant, but it did not address other digital location tracking, including through cell phones, OnStar systems and consumer electronics devices.
The GPS Act applies to all domestic law enforcement acquisitions of the geolocation information of individual Americans without their knowledge, including acquisitions from private companies and direct acquisitions through the use of cell-site technology. It would also combat high-tech stalking by creating criminal penalties for surreptitiously using an electronic device to track a person’s movements, and it would prohibit commercial service providers from sharing customers’ geolocation information with outside entities without customer consent.
Wyden and Chaffitiz have now introduced versions of the GPS Act four times since 2011. Though hearings have been held, the Act has yet to make it out of committee for a vote.
“Outdated laws shouldn’t be an excuse for open season on tracking Americans, and owning a smartphone or fitness tracker shouldn’t give the government a blank check to track your movements,” Wyden said. “Law enforcement should be able to use GPS data, but they need to get a warrant. This bill sets out clear rules to make sure our laws keep up with the times.”
“Congress has an obligation to act quickly to protect Americans from violations of their privacy made possible by emerging technologies,” Chaffetz said. “As we welcome innovative technologies that help fight crime, we must be mindful of the potential for abuse. This bill will build a framework governing the use of geolocation and cell site simulator technologies.”
“We must enact the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act to require the government to obtain a warrant based on probable cause to compel companies such as cell phone service providers to disclose the geolocation information of their customers,” said Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (MI-13). “Geolocation tracking, whether information about where we have been or where we are going, strikes at the heart of personal privacy interests. The pattern of our movements reveals much about ourselves. When individuals are tracked in this way, the government is able to generate a profile of a person’s public movements that includes details about a person’s familial, political, professional, religious, and other intimate associations. That is why we need this legislation to provide a strong and clear legal standard to protect this information.”
Support for the Act
Technology and civil rights organizations praised the bill’s introduction.
Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union: “In today’s world, most Americans use cell phones or other electronic devices that are capable of tracking their every move, including visits to a mosque, doctor’s office, domestic violence shelter, or political rally. This information that the government should not be able to get without a warrant – yet law enforcement routinely fails to meet this standard. Congress should swiftly pass the GPS Act to protect this sensitive information.”
Gabe Rottman, deputy director of the Freedom, Technology & Security Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology: “As we move into the world of connected devices, and as the sheer number of these devices grow, location tracking becomes more accurate, and more revealing. Basic notions of American privacy necessitate passage of this important reform to require a warrant for location tracking.”
Amie Stepanovich, U.S. policy manager at Access Now: “Computer scientists have proven that even a few location points can be used to reveal incredibly broad and personal information about an individual. At the same time, ever more devices are collecting our location data. Law enforcement agencies are using an increasingly sophisticated array of technology to obtain that information without proper legal protections. What you don’t know can hurt you. Access Now applauds the GPS Act for protecting this sensitive information and mandating a warrant requirement for law enforcement access.”
Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “Geolocation data paints a detailed portrait of our daily lives that reveals sensitive information about us and our families — whether a visit to a children’s cancer specialist or to a church, synagogue or mosque. The government shouldn’t be able to track us without a warrant just because we use cellphones. The GPS Act ensures all Americans have strong legal protections for their geolocation data.”
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) wrote to U.S. federal agency heads on Jan. 26, in response to reports that the administration under President Donald Trump has instructed federal agencies to stop communicating with the media, policymakers and the public.
“The signals are not encouraging, and they’re alarming, and they’re causing a lot of fear in the scientific community,” Christine McEntee, AGU chief executive and executive director, told the Washington Post.
“I’ve never seen the scientific community so concerned,” Rush Holt, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told the Post. “This goes way beyond funding. When fake news is accepted as just one of the alternate approaches, then there are serious problems to be addressed.”
Logo: AGU
March for Science. The AGU is among several professional scientific organizations expressing concerns. A March for Science is being planned in Washington, D.C.
When asked about the march, McEntee told the Post, “If it’s a neutral and nonpartisan voice for the value of science and the work of scientists, we would consider endorsing it, but we need to find out more information.”
The march now has a Facebook page, a Twitter handle and a website, as well as a Google form through which those interested can sign up to help. Organizers told snopes.com that plans are to release both a date for the event and a platform statement by Jan. 30.
Scientific Integrity. The letter from AGU expresses concern over news reports about violations of scientific integrity and interference with public access to and communication of scientific information.
In the letter, AGU emphasized scientific integrity and transparency as critical to “advancing national security, a strong economy, public health, and food security.” AGU calls on the agencies, and the administration, to reverse policies that threaten scientific integrity and open communication as soon as possible and urges that they not be reinstated.
“Access to scientific information improves and informs many aspects of our everyday lives,” McEntee said in a press release about the letter. “AGU will be monitoring to see if the policies have been lifted and whether the scientific information that is currently available remains. It is critical to our economic success, national security and public health that the American people continue to receive to the most up-to-date scientific research and information.”
AGU has a position statement related to scientific integrity entitled, “AGU Supports Free and Open Communication of Scientific Findings.” The statement was adopted in 2011 and reaffirmed in September 2016. In late 2016, AGU launched a petition calling on the new administration to make the appointment of a scientific advisor a top priority. The petition has nearly 9,000 signatures.
Communication is one of AGU’s cornerstones. According to its letter masthead, “AGU galvanizes a community of Earth and space scientists that collaboratively advances and communicates science and its power to ensure a sustainable future.”
Below is the text of an email to members that AGU issued the same day. AGU is asking U.S. members to send a copy of the letter to their congresspersons.
Dear AGU member,
Whether you live in the United States or not, you likely have heard the recent news reports about U.S. federal agencies instructing scientists to cease communication of their research to the media, policymakers and in some case, the public. While there are reports and rumors that many of those orders are being rescinded or otherwise qualified, we have heard from members around the world expressing concern about the impact such actions could have on scientific integrity and the open and unfettered communication of science.
AGU shares your concerns. Science plays a critical role in advancing national security, a strong economy, public health, and food security, and as such, scientists must be allowed to share their work directly and openly with the public. That’s why we issued a letter to the federal scientific agencies today asking that the restrictions be lifted soon so that critical, up-to-date scientific information remains readily available to the public.
For those of you in the U.S., we strongly encourage you to consider sending a copy of this letter to your members of Congress. AGU’s Action Center platform provides an easy option for sending such communications, and it can be accessed here. If you are in the U.S. (and even for those of you who aren’t), I also encourage you to sign up for AGU’s Science Policy Alerts, where we will be sharing regular updates and making recommendations for how you can take action.
In closing, please know that AGU intends to be a strong and active voice for the important role science plays in our global society, and for the need to protect scientific integrity and scientists’ ability to perform and communicate their research without political interference.
Best,
Eric and Chris
Eric Davidson, AGU President
Christine McEntee, AGU Executive Director and CEO
The report examines the objectives behind Beijing’s decision to develop the system as an alternative to GPS, its efforts to build an industry around the system, and the effects this might have in security, economic and diplomatic terms for the U.S.
“The system’s primary purpose is to end China’s military reliance on GPS, although China’s associated industrial policies will likely affect U.S. firms operating in China’s market. Industry professionals assess there are no inherent risks to products such as smartphones receiving data from BeiDou.”
China’s BeiDou is projected to achieve global coverage by 2020.
The commission was created through a congressional mandate in October 2000, and is responsible for monitoring and investigating national security and trade issues between the United States and People’s Republic of China.
Beidou constellation
Key Findings
China has sought to field its own satellite navigation system in order to (1) address national security requirements by ending military reliance on GPS; (2) build a commercial downstream satellite navigation industry to take advantage of the quickly expanding market; and (3) achieve domestic and international prestige by fielding one of only four such systems yet developed, cementing China’s status as a leading space power and opening the door to international cooperation opportunities.
Industry professionals assess there are no inherent risks to products such as smartphones receiving data from Beidou. While concerns have been raised that malware in devices could allow China’s government to track users, experts (1) are not aware of ways to feasibly transmit malware through a navigation signal and (2) assess that manufacturers will be unlikely to include Beidou’s unique messaging function due to cost factors. Restrictions on technology purchases from China by U.S. government and military users can help guard against malware being physically installed.
Beidou is of foremost importance in allowing China’s military to employ precision-guided conventional strike weapons—a central feature of Beijing’s efforts to counter a U.S. intervention in a potential contingency—if access to GPS is denied.
GPS and Beidou signals are both provided for free and are not in “competition” for market share. Also, the satellite navigation industry is trending toward “multi-constellation” receivers that work with all systems. This means that the U.S. firms that currently dominate the downstream satellite navigation industry will likely be able to incorporate Beidou functionality and continue to compete, although prospects in the China market may narrow.
China plans to expand Beidou coverage to most of the countries covered in its “One Belt, One Road” initiative by 2018, indicating it sees the system as playing a role in its economic diplomacy efforts. China has also sought to incentivize countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East to begin using Beidou, and seeks to build a network of ground stations throughout Asia to improve the system’s accuracy.
In response to these developments, the United States can consider allowing government and military users to take advantage of multi-constellation devices, while continuing to monitor the industry to assure that security threats do not materialize; promote interoperability to ensure its firms remain competitive; and continue to invest in maintaining its leadership in space.
Current coverage of BeiDou constellation (from report).
By Karen Parrish, DoD News, Defense Media Activity
An Air Force program that will provide a vital new command system for the global positioning system satellite constellation in the shortest time possible will continue despite cost growth, Defense Department officials have confirmed.
Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, announced Oct. 12 the continuation of an over-cost program supporting the global positioning system. Here, Kendall is briefed by Jose Romero-Mariona on cybersecurity science and technology during Kendall’s visit to Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific in San Diego, Aug. 24. (Navy photo by Aaron Lebsack)
The next-generation operational control system, known as OCX, reached what is called a Nunn-McCurdy breach on June 30. The Nunn-McCurdy provision applies to weapons programs and requires the military services to notify Congress if a program’s cost per unit increases 25 percent or more over the current baseline estimate.
But well before June 30, defense acquisition experts began working with Raytheon, the contractor for OCX, to resolve program issues. In December 2015, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall directed in-depth quarterly reviews, including a series of “deep dives” overseen by him. Certification activities began in July 2016, and culminated with Kendall certifying the program to Congress yesterday, thus allowing the program to continue.
Next-Generation GPS
James MacStravic, acting assistant secretary of defense for acquisition, discussed OCX and its importance with DoD News.
“This is what the controllers on the ground are going to use to make sure that all the satellites are talking to each other, that they’re exchanging the same information [and] that they’re where they’re supposed to be,” he said.
The OCX system will command all modernized and legacy GPS satellites, manage all civil and military navigation signals and provide improved cybersecurity and resilience for the next generation of GPS operations.
The OCX program includes the following phases: Block 0, to perform launch and checkout of GPS-III satellites; Block 1, to command all navigation signals, including the modernized military signal; and Block 2, for additional enhancements to signal assurance and navigation warfare capabilities. The ground segment capability not only supports military forces, but also civil, commercial and scientific uses. The current total program cost estimate for OCX is $5.46 billion.
OCX will consist of:
A master control station and alternate master control station;
Dedicated monitor stations;
Ground antennas;
GPS system simulator; and
Standardized space trainer
Turning the Program Around
Defense officials said factors in the OCX cost growth included late recognition of the magnitude of information assurance work that was required, concurrent systems engineering that drove significant rework, inconsistent configuration management of the program baselines, immature software and a lack of automation across the program. These issues drove schedule slips, which in turn increased the cost of the program, leading to the breach.
MacStravic described the efforts defense officials and Raytheon have made to turn the program around. He emphasized the work has included the personal involvement of Kendall, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Raytheon’s chief executive officer.
“What we spent the summer doing was making sure … does this program have the right management resources, the right financial resources and an appropriate schedule to succeed?” MacStravic said.
Officials report that after three on-site quarterly reviews, Kendall’s assessment is that Raytheon is making substantial progress on the program, but that some additional schedule increase has occurred and that there is risk of more schedule increases.
Progress has been sufficient to support certification under the Nunn-McCurdy process, officials said. Kendall’s office will continue the OCX quarterly reviews begun in March 2016, which to date have included the secretary and principal deputy acquisition chief of the Air Force, the program executive officer and Raytheon’s chief executive officer.
The alternatives to certifying the program included several options, including program termination, but this was deemed simply unworkable, due to the extended time it would require to design and field a new ground system for the vital GPS III network.
According to officials, the future of the OCX program will depend upon Raytheon’s ability to demonstrate that it can deliver the needed capability to the Air Force at acceptable cost and within an acceptable time.
[Editor’s note: This is the Signals Leadership Award acceptance speech given by Clark Cohen at GPS World’s 2016 Leadership Dinner in September. The Award was recognized the development of alternates to GPS based on communication satellites: a method for adding high-accuracy ranging capability to Iridium by modifying the transmitted signal structure of an already flying, programmable constellation. ]
Thank you GPS World, industry sponsors, and colleagues who engaged in the selection process. I appreciate the honor.
The Advanced Waveform was the second and most ambitious broadcast that we developed for the DoD-sponsored iGPS program. It is a wide-bandwidth (10 MHz maximum spectrum allocation), near-white, high-power broadcast with independently resolvable code and carrier capable of illuminating regions of the world at any time. Yet Iridium was never designed for navigation.
I am grateful to the Naval Research Lab, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Boeing, and Iridium for their support. Also, many capable people comprised our team. Completeness is impossible, but I’ll highlight the efforts of Dick Cervisi, Kamran Ghassemi, Ann Stevens, Robert Scholl, Tom Guffey, Bernie McCormick and Mark Psiaki.
The commercial Iridium constellation is built on billions of dollars of private capital. Meanwhile, the iGPS overlay required Congressional appropriation. But if the technical part weren’t challenging enough, the politics were, in my view, a bit too hard.
My topic is the future of public-private partnerships. Such partnerships include the GPS space and ground segments and most other government projects. Our broken, inflexible Congress is not helping. My answer here for the family dinner table is not political — it’s structural, non-partisan, systems engineering.
We can do better than handicapped innovation, winner-take-all procurements, Nunn-McCurdy triggers, continuing resolutions, debt-limit brinksmanship and government shut-downs. This is not to judge people. Good people are operating under imperfect rules.
House elections now resemble a stuck, one-bit, analog-to-digital converter. Hundreds of individual races, cumulate the equivalent of input noise and bias, rendering the House largely unresponsive to voters. Consent of the governed demands a healthy, moderating feedback loop from people to representatives to laws and back. Cutting this loop spells trouble.
A major root cause of dysfunction is winner-take-all, single-member districts. Geographical voting made sense in the 18th century. But in an increasingly complex, connected world, where you live is no longer a stand-in for what you think.
We need to start dissolving district boundaries themselves. An elegant approach is aggregating adjacent single-member districts into larger multi-winner “super districts” with three to five members each. A refinement called Ranked Choice Voting eliminates spoiler hazard and incentivizes positive campaigns. No change to the Constitution is needed — only passing a law.
We should reset our expectations. Congress should be able to pass the nation’s budget on time every time. We don’t need drama around GPS modernization, backup terrestrial navigation, and spectrum protection. And America should boldly pioneer aspirational, cathedral-and-moonshot-scale, public-private initiatives.
Working hard and playing by the rules implies a value-added, positive-sum relationship with society. But to the extent that the rules are imperfect, don’t vestiges of zero-sum exchange imply collateral damage somewhere in society? Voters are rebelling by the millions. We should pay attention. America’s defining Revolutionary War was fought over taxation without representation.
Whether applied to sword or plowshare, precision feedback from GPS provides guidance to help minimize collateral damage. Updated voting rules will do the same for the nation. Everyone benefits from more efficient and effective execution. Yet perhaps our greatest harvest — should we choose to claim it for ourselves and our children — will follow from sowing new seeds of discovery and innovation through public-private partnerships on a vast and visionary scale.
The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee withheld the full amount requested by the Pentagon for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 for OCX, the Next-Generation Operational Control System (ground control) for GPS, heretofore deemed necessary to operate the next generation of satellites, GPS III. The Pentagon had asked for $394 million in the upcoming funding cycle, to enable Raytheon to continue work on the program.
If allowed by Congress to continue, OCX may cost as much as $5.3 billion, and there is no certainty that the bill will not rise further.
The Senate committee will not release the $394 million until the Defense Department complies with the requirements of the Nunn-McCurdy Act governing defense programs. Otherwise, Congress could act to terminate OCX.
The terms of the Act now require the Secretary of Defense to conduct an in-depth review and then state that the program is essential to national security, is more important than other programs that will have to be cut to accommodate its cost overruns, and that there are no acceptable alternatives.
From the Defense Department point of view, the new GPS III satellites are essential because of, among other things, their signals’ improved resistance to jamming and cyberattack, an oft-cited peril in the modern global security scenario.
How GPS III could be launched — the first satellite is scheduled for sometime in 2017 — and operated without OCX is not entirely clear, although in February, Lockheed Martin received a $96 million contract to provide contingency control operations for the first GPS III satellites upon launch because OCX won’t be ready. Raytheon and the U.S. Air Force announced a month ago that OCX “successfully passed the first formal qualification test milestone” needed to check out the system and for the early monitoring of satellites in orbit. That “validates the maturity of the OCX launch and checkout system,” according to a statement by Bill Sullivan, Raytheon’s OCX program director.
Raytheon won the OCX contract in 2010 with a bid somewhat more than $1.5 billion. The Air Force recently made its FY 2017 budget request for $393 million as part of an overall anticipated program cost of $4.82 billion. However, a Bloomberg news report states that the total cost may have risen to $5.3 billion.
Galileo Launch and Production
At press time, the latest pair of Galileo satellites was expected to launch into orbit on May 24: the 13th and 14th satellites in the constellation.
A second launch is planned for this fall, carrying four satellites aboard a customized Ariane 5 for the first time. This would bring the count to 18 Galileo satellites in orbit by the end of the year.
Final Payload Delivered. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. in the United Kingdom has delivered the 22nd Galileo navigation payload to prime contractor OHB System in Bremen, Germany. This is SSTL’s final payload under Galileo Full Operational Capability (FOC) Works Orders 1 and 2.
Europe’s 13th and 14th Galileo satellites lifted off at 08:48 GMT from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana atop a Soyuz launcher. (Photo: ESA)
BeiDou 30 over 5
China plans to launch 30 Beidou navigation satellites during the five-year period 2016–2020, said Ran Chengqi, director of the China Satellite Navigation Office, during the China Satellite Navigation Conference in early May.
This would realize the country’s three-step strategy to build a global navigation system by 2020. A batch of 18 satellites will be launched before 2018. China and Russia have agreed to make BeiDou and GLONASS compatible, and BeiDou has successfully synchronized its frequency with Galileo, Chengqi added.
Four U.S. congressman sent a letter to the Department of Transportation asking the DoT to delay shutting down Nationwide Differential GPS (NDGPS) sites, a proposal that was posted in the Federal Register.
The congressmen are asking for a delay until the “administration has decided upon and implemented a resilient national positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) architecture.”
A bi-partisan group of legislators led by Congressman John Garamendi (D-Calif.) has introduced a bill that would require the U.S. Secretary of Defense to establish a backup for GPS within three years using eLoran.
The National Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2015, H.R. 1678, was co-sponsored by Congressmen Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), and Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J). Garamendi is the ranking member of the House Transportation and uInfrastructure Subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
H.R. 1678 would require the secretary of defense, in coordination with the commandant of the Coast Guard and the secretary of transportation, to establish and sustain a reliable, land-based positioning and navigation system that will complement and backup America’s GPS for military and civilian uses by using eLoran.
eLoran is the government’s existing and underused long-range navigation system infrastructure. The backup system would step in when GPS signals are corrupted, degraded, unreliable, or otherwise unavailable. A terrestrial-based system, eLoran wouldn’t be affected by atmospheric interruptions such as solar storms, or jamming or spoofing aimed at GPS.
The bill directs the secretary of defense to incorporate the expertise and contributions of the private sector to quickly establish system architecture, as well as build and operate the system.
“GPS is much more than a LCD screen on your dashboard. It’s a technology used for much of our nation’s critical infrastructure and by almost every major industry in America, as well as the military, law enforcement, and first responders,” Garamendi said in a press release. “We are increasingly reliant on the precision, navigation, and timing services that GPS provides. From land navigation on cell phones to a timing source for our national infrastructure, we need a reliable backup system to GPS.”
Garamendi said the bill would make the nation’s geopositioning infrastructure more resilient to “threats both natural and nefarious.” “A backup system could also reach places that GPS currently cannot, such as inside many buildings. This would help first responders and law enforcement more effectively protect the public,” he added.
Other members of Congress are expected to sign on as co-sponsors after Congress returns from its spring recess, according to Dana A. Goward, president and executive director, Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation.
The eLoran PNT system would use enhanced long-range signals (eLoran) from 19 towers around the country, each with approximately a 1,000-mile range providing overlapping fields from which a device can derive its location. The back-up system would use the remaining Loran infrastructure and provide a secure and reliable cybersecurity insurance policy, said the press release.
The U.S. atomic clock, accurate to one second in 300 million years, also serves as the base timing source for this backup GPS capability. This exceeds the timing needs of modern cell phones, creating an infrastructure backbone that is prepared to handle the evolution of consumer and industry electronic communications in the years ahead, the press release said.
The bill sets out numerous requirements for the system, saying that it shall:
Be wireless, terrestrial, and wide area
Provide a precise, high-power 100 kilohertz signal
Be resilient and extremely difficult to disrupt or degrade
Be able to penetrate underground and inside buildings
Take full advantage of existing, unused Loran infrastructure
Work in concert with and complement any other similar positioning, navigation and timing systems, including eLoran.
Since 2004, the federal government has recognized that the absence of a reliable backup system for GPS is a glaring economic and security threat to the United States, and has reaffirmed its interest in developing an eLoran as a reliable, land-based backup for GPS signals, the press release said.
In January, the United States Army began soliciting information for eLoran receivers for the warfighter, either stand-alone or integrated with GPS, for use in Army and other Department of Defense maritime, aviation, or vehicular platforms, and for position and timing.
The United Kingdom began using eLoran in October 2014 to protect its shipping lanes, which carry 95 percent of UK trade, in case of GPS signal loss.
The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a hearing Jan. 21 on the integration of commercial unmanned aerial vehicles in United States airspace. Colin Guinn, senior vice president of sales for 3D Robotics, demonstrated the Parrot Bebop drone during his testimony.
C-SPAN aired the event, as reported by the National Journal. Congress has tasked the Federal Aviation Administration with readying airspace for the integration of commercial drones. Drones are currently prohibited for use, but the FAA has granted a growing number of exemptions for certain industries, including an exemption to GNSS company Trimble for its UX5 drone.
Also, earlier this month, CNN signed a research agreement with regulators to test drone systems for news-gathering purposes.
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security; Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management; Hearing, July 19, 2012: Using Unmanned Aerial Systems Within the Homeland: Security Game Changer?
Testimony by Todd E. Humphreys, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor, Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin. [Excerpted. Prof. Humphreys is a co-author of the article “Drone Hack” in the August issue of GPS World.].
The vulnerability of civil GPS to spoofing has serious implications for civil unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as was recently illustrated by a dramatic remote hijacking of a UAV at White Sands Missile Range.
Hacking a UAV by GPS spoofing is but one expression of a larger problem: insecure civil GPS technology has over the last two decades been absorbed deeply into critical systems within our national infrastructure. Besides UAVs, civil GPS spoofing also presents a danger to manned aircraft, maritime craft, communications systems, banking and finance institutions, and the national power grid.
Constructing from scratch a sophisticated GPS spoofer like the one developed by the University of Texas is not easy. It is not within the capability of the average person on the street, or even the average Anonymous hacker. But the emerging tools of software-defined radio and the availability of GPS signal simulators are putting spoofers within reach of ordinary malefactors.
There is no quick, easy, and cheap fix for the civil GPS spoofing problem. What is more, not even the most effective GPS spoofing defenses are foolproof. But reasonable, cost-effective spoofing defenses exist which, if implemented, will make successful spoofing much harder.
I recommend that for non-recreational operation in the national airspace civil UAVs exceeding 18 lbs be required to employ navigation systems that are spoof-resistant.
More broadly, I recommend that GPS-based timing or navigation systems having a non-trivial role in systems designated by DHS as national critical infrastructure be required to be spoof-resistant.
Finally, I recommend that the DHS commit to funding development and implementation of a cryptographic authentication signature in one of the existing or forthcoming civil GPS signals.
