In the recent past many incidents of interference in PNT services have resurfaced, reflecting the vulnerability of entire global economy. Thus the need for the resilient PNT capabilities is more than ever.
Industries such as aviation, agriculture, telecommunications, power grids, financial transactions, location-based services, maritime, oil and gas, surface mining, professional surveying, and others rely heavily on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services.
PNT can actually be called “the invisible utility” as more and more companies, consumers, and governments become increasingly reliant on PNT services. PNT is finding use in everything from civil to commercial to military and overall a strong part of global economy drive. A single point of failure can bring the global economy to their knees.
According to RTI International, “a complete GPS outage would cost the US economy $1 billion per day”, which becomes mammoth if calculated globally.
In the recent past many incidents of interference in PNT services have resurfaced following the Russia-Ukraine war. One such incident that grabbed US headlines in October 2022, was when the Dallas Fort Worth Airport (DFW) in Texas was forced to close a runway and re-route flights over a two-day period due to unexplained GPS interference at the airport. Being one of the significant travel hubs, the disturbance caused noteworthy widespread logistical and economic disruption in all related arenas.
Ganesh Pattabiraman, Co-Founder and CEO NextNav said, “Recent signal interference incidents in 2022 at the Dallas and Denver airports that forced flights to reroute are clear consequences of failing to prepare for GPS vulnerabilities.”
Transition of PNT over the years
To avoid such incidents in future, the need for resilient PNT service is more than ever. There is an urgent need for the transition of the PNT services to become resilient PNT services in the face of threats it faces to ensure the interrelated economies do not crumble or disrupt.
As industry discussions convened on this topic, it is widely acknowledged that 2023 needs to see resilient PNT evolve with expanding government investments in alternative sources of PNT.
Expanding reliance on the traditional dependence on US GPS, Europe’s Galileo, Russia’s GLONASS may be perceived as too risky. Now, new and more affordable options, such as Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations, are making such investments more attractive.
A report on PNT Backup and Complementary Capabilities
to the GPS released by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2020 showed that the uses of position and navigation data in critical infrastructure are so diverse that no single PNT system (including GPS) can fulfill all user requirements and applications. The report recommends a series of application-specific PNT systems rather than a single alternative.
As noted in this report, indeed no single technology can account for the wide variety of use cases that PNT services address. The desired solution will require several technologies working together to serve as both complements and supplements to GPS.
GPS is still likely to remain an important component of PNT systems for the foreseeable future as it is cost-effective for various civil applications. For military usage, GNSS systems are likely to be augmented with redundant position capabilities to secure mission success.
David Harel, Asio Technologies CEO, said, “Over the years numerous advances in PNT innovation have been made, including improvements in GPS technology, the development of new GNSS constellations, and the introduction of complementary positioning technologies like VPS, Optical Flow, INS, and SLAM.”
The future of PNT is influenced by rapid technological advancements in AI, ML, and Internet of Things (IoT). These advancements can lead to increased accuracy and reliability, improved security and integrity, expanded applications and services, and the transition to the 4IR.
“The future of PNT is undouble influenced by rapid technological advancements in AI, machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT). These advancements can lead to increased accuracy and reliability, improved security and integrity, expanded applications and services, and the transition to the 4IR. This will have far-reaching impacts on various industries and applications, including drones, land, and naval applications,” he added.
Changes needed
The economic impact and the strategic dependence on PNT services in the overall global economy is huge today. This dependence is steadily growing and since the interrelated factors are widespread, there is also a realization that vulnerabilities of PNT systems would lead to tremendous economic loss as well as serious disruption of everyday life.
To ensure PNT resiliency, the industry needs:
- Increased accuracy and availability in urban environments
- Indoor navigation
- Altitude data (3D location)
- Increased resilience and redundancy
- Increased security
Pattabiram said, “It’s crucial for policymakers and infrastructure owners to explore and deploy complementary PNT solutions to close these gaps and avoid potential chaos – as we’re seeing right now, with both the US and European Union taking promising steps to study and implement these critical technologies.”
Governments around the world are beginning to take steps to develop a complementary, resilient, PNT strategy.
Major focus lies in:
- Increased focus on protecting PNT and denying hostile use.
- Incorporated principles of responsible use of PNT
- New direction on adding cyber-security protections for PNT and federal user equipment to increasing resilience against disruption and/or manipulation of GNSS signals.
- New direction to protect the GPS spectrum environment.
“As an industry, we absolutely have to come together to ensure there are multiple complementary layers to PNT that address national and global security concerns. These are challenges we can address only when governments, infrastructure owners, and technology companies like ours work together to acknowledge the vulnerabilities and create and implement solutions,” said Ganesh Pattabiraman.
If the economic value considerations are made, evaluations confirm the overall industry value growing at an accelerated pace. For example, the UK space strategy and UK satellite infrastructure – report Summary recently published by the UK Government indicates that as much as 17% of annual non-financial business GDP is now dependent on satellite services – an annual total of over £360 billion. While that includes all types of satellites, definitely a large part of it is satellite-based PNT.
As an industry, we have to come together to ensure there are multiple complementary layers to PNT that address national and global security concerns. We can address only when governments, infrastructure owners, and technology companies like ours work together to acknowledge the vulnerabilities, create and implement solutions.
“According to a NIST study a few years ago, GPS is now responsible for more than USD 700 Billion annually, just in the US alone. Our current reliance on PNT (GPS) leaves numerous sectors of society vulnerable to outages, spoofing attacks, signal jamming and even natural interference from solar flares,” said Pattabiraman.
Open PNT Industry Alliance to aid resilience and add strategic value
The recognition of the need for a resilient PNT service to be fostered heralds in formulation of appropriate strategies to pave the path to this desired goal. A key strategy is the formation of an industry alliance to ensure a collective and united approach towards all initiatives by relevant stakeholders.
A significant strength of industry alliances is their ability to educate consumers, regulators, and leaders of related industries on important aspects of their industry. They can aid in molding industry standards and policies that impact their industry and are also able to solve problems and improve conditions within the industry. Strategic industry alliances are also able to advocate for a better future at the intersection of their industry sector and society.
In December 2020, infiniDome, Iridium Communications, Jackson Labs Technologies, NAVSYS Corpo- ration, NextNav, OPNT, Orolia, Qulsar, Satelles, and Seven Solutions came together to create the Open PNT Industry Alliance (www.openpnt.org).
This coalition of PNT companies envisions strengthening economic and national security by supporting government efforts to accelerate the implementation of backup PNT capabilities for critical infrastructure. This important industry alliance aims to ascertain that national government requirements for GPS/ GNSS backup are sufficiently broad to include a range of technological solutions.
Securing national government commitments to policies and funding for long-term sustainability of diverse PNT solutions is yet another one of their visionary goal.
“Part of that is having standards across companies and industries that will help us scale GPS alterna- tives, and we’re proud of our track record and history of partnering with others to move the industry forward,” Pattabiramam added.
The coalition believes the Executive Order on “Strengthening National Resilience Through Responsible Use of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Services,” issued in February 2020 by the US administration began the process for a national alternative PNT policy.
This order directs federal agencies to take steps to reduce disruption of critical infrastructure that relies on PNT, including GPS and directs critical infrastructure owners and operators to strengthen their systems’ resilience. Some of the affected markets include the electrical power grid, communications infrastructure and mobile devices, all modes of transportation, precision agriculture, weather forecasting and emergency response.
