GPS Alternatives Needed, but Commercial Market Is Challenging
The U.S. is in dire need of commercial services to complement or back up GPS, though global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and space industry experts expect commercial services to face a business challenge in competing with GPS' free signals. Some speakers at a George Washington University/Aerospace Corp. seminar Tuesday also said RF diversity could help tackle GPS interference problems but would see a major regulatory fight. In response to an FCC notice of inquiry regarding positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) alternatives, NTIA on Tuesday submitted an "inventory" of possibilities (see 2505270037).
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With GPS jamming and spoofing incidents on the rise, the U.S. must make its GPS satellites more robust, with new signals technology and encryption, Transportation Deputy Secretary Steven Bradbury said. There's a need for ground-based receivers with better cybersecurity and capabilities to detect and avoid jamming and spoofing, he said, as well as better capabilities to recover from that interference. The Department of Homeland Security and the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology are developing frameworks, standards and protocols to ensure such cyber resilience, he said: Complementary PNT systems that don't rely on GPS are “a critical national security imperative."
The Transportation Department, which is in the midst of a second round of testing of complementary PNT technologies, aims to incentivize private investment in and commercial development of such systems, Bradbury said. Part of creating a commercial alternative to GPS could come from the government buying those services, he said, adding that the FAA, a heavy user of GPS for aviation safety, could "help jump-start" the complementary PNT industry that way.
Kara Leibin Azocar, Iridium's vice president-regulatory and public policy, said the business case for alternatives is emerging from GPS' vulnerabilities. With Iridium's commercial PNT service, its niche is that its signals are much stronger than GPS' and can work indoors, she said.
The third satellite in TrustPoint's planned 380-satellite low earth orbit constellation is set to launch in less than a month, said COO Chris DeMay. The constellation will use the C band to provide a commercial alternative to GPS, making money by selling access to its proprietary signal, he said. Because of the free nature of GPS, an alternative service has to be cheap and bespoke, he added.
Pete Large, senior vice president-strategy for Trimble Navigation, disagreed that GPS is a big competitor to commercial services. Pointing to Trimble's RTX service of providing real-time corrections to GNSS, he said subscription data services that are reliable and robust will see demand.
Andy Uribe, a member of the Air Line Pilots Association's Aviation Security Council, said GPS interference incidents happen primarily outside the U.S., but its effects are proliferating. The sources of interference are typically jamming and spoofing operations by nation-states in conflict areas, such as Ukraine, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, he said. While flying, pilots often can't tell how GPS interference is affecting the aircraft, he said, and they want more awareness built into planes to provide information about what capabilities remain in otherwise-degraded systems. There's a need for flight management systems that don't assume GPS is always available and coherent, he said, adding that many safety systems, such as ground proximity warnings, rely on a GPS signal.
Some speakers cited the challenging logistics of diversifying GPS' signals by using other frequencies. Scott Pace, director of GWU's Space Policy Institute, said there's regulatory pressure for GPS to stay in one place, the S band, rather than expanding across multiple signals.