Image: Shutterstock
We see A LOT of articles about different PNT systems, services, and techniques in the popular and industry press. Many tout a system being offered by the author or their company. Too many attempt to elevate their product by denigrating other products, companies, and in one case individuals.
We don’t think that helps the company/system being touted, the PNT community, nor nations that must act to become more resilient.
Lots of conflicting ‘news’
There are so many reports and systems, making sense of it all can be a challenge, even for someone who is generally familiar with the technology and industry. For those who are not familiar – national policy makers and their staffs, for example – it can be absolutely bewildering. Sometimes to the point where they either take the word of the lobbyist that is in front of them, or more likely decide the issue is too difficult and move on to other problems.
Because of that, we have heard a number of government officials asking for “a consistent message from industry.” That would be nice, but it is a bit like asking for Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper to develop a consistent message on which is the best beverage.
“Our system is great!”
A few things to remember when articles advocating for specific PNT systems pop up in your inbox:
- There are a lot of systems available and they all have advantages and disadvantages.
- Nothing “replaces” GPS/GNSS. But lots of systems can and do complement and supplement GNSS.
- Most articles about PNT systems are written by a person or company that provides a system or has some other financial interest.
- Many sites/journals/magazines love free content and may be fairly uncritical when publishing “news.”
A way to think about national needs
For policy makers and others new to the topic, there are generally two are two classes of PNT:
- ‘Utility-level’ PNT which should be available to every part of the nation that requires service, including maritime Exclusive Economic Zones (200 mi. limit). It should also be easily accessed (few barriers to adoption), because it is a utility. GPS and other GNSS provide utility-level PNT.
- Utility-level systems to complement and back up GPS/GNSS should have characteristics (phenomenology) as different from GPS/GNSS as possible including being very difficult to disrupt (resilient).
- These more resilient systems must act as safety net to protect national, homeland, and economic security. They may or may not need to have the same timing and location accuracy as GPS/GNSS.
- GPS/GNSS together with one or more widely available, easily adopted, resilient complementary and backup systems create a resilient national PNT architecture. This is a “backbone” more specialized PNT systems can integrate and work with, and a baseline for innovative new systems and services.
- ‘Specialized’ PNT serves specific missions and applications that demand higher resilience, accuracy, or other characteristics above and beyond ‘utility-level’ PNT. These are and will continue to be commercial services.
The most important things
First and foremost we all need to remember:
- PNT services are essential to life. If they go away across broad areas there will be major social disruptions, people will die, governments will likely fall, and the world will be changed for the worse.
- America and the West are far behind our major adversaries – China and Russia – in PNT resilience. Our adversaries can survive denial of GNSS far better. This gives them huge strategic and tactical advantages. Russia may have already successfully used GPS blackmail against the U.S. to facilitate its invasion of Ukraine in 2021.
- Malicious acts against GNSS are not the only danger. The probabilities of accidents and natural events like the Kessler Syndrome and major solar disruptions that could deny GNSS signals are low. But the probabilities are greater than zero.
- Without resilient national PNT architectures western nations will always be unacceptably vulnerable to coercion, localized and wide spread attacks, and other GNSS disruptions.
Protect satellites, signals, and users
The RNT Foundation is a scientific and educational charity that advocates for policies and systems to protect GPS/GNSS satellites, signals, and users. We do our best to be technology agnostic and urge all governments to focus and ensure their nations have resilient PNT.
Widely adopted utility-level resilient PNT architectures will make users safer by providing PNT even when GPS/GNSS signals are not available.
It will also make GPS/GNSS satellites and signals safer by making them much less attractive targets.
Hence, RNT Foundation’s unofficial motto: Get the bullseye off GPS!
If you would like to help keep the conversation going consider becoming a member of the RNT Foundation.