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What’s new: A paper “Towards a Structural Framework for PNT Situational Awareness” by Andy Proctor that should be of interest to everyone in the community.
Why it’s important:
- Before you solve a problem, you need to realize you have one and its extent.
- Acting with incomplete or bad information is often futile, or even counter-productive.
- Andy offers an interesting perspective on awareness overall.
What else to know:
- Awareness is key to governance. – The primary roles of governments and governance are to prevent harm to the governed and promote their wellbeing. The key elements of governance are:
- Rules & Regimes – Laws, regulations, and other standards that describe how things SHOULD be.
- Awareness – The ability to understand how things are.
- Operational Capability – The ability to interact with the world to cause things to be closer to the way they should be.
- When we were involve in Maritime Domain Awareness we described it as “See, Understand, Share.” The last bit, “share” was to empower folks at all levels of government and the public.
- Andy’s model is similar with “Perceive” (See), and “Comprehension” (Understand) but he has “Projection” or understanding how this is going to affect me in the future, instead of “Share.” We like the idea about thinking ahead as a part of “awareness.” Being aware of likely futures.
Towards a Structural Framework for
PNT Situational Awareness
Integrating PNT System Resilience and Human-Centric Situational Awareness for Strategic Infrastructure Protection
Andy Proctor – May 2025
Executive Summary
Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) systems underpin nearly every critical
function of modern infrastructure, from transport and communications to energy
distribution and national security. As dependence on PNT—especially satellite-based
services—continues to grow, so does the risk landscape surrounding its use. Threats
from both natural disruptions and hostile actors present urgent challenges to
ensuring the resilience, assurance, and integrity of PNT services.
This essay advances the concept of PNT Situational Awareness (PNT-SA) as a
critical strategic capability essential to organisational and national resilience, and
operational continuity. It proposes a structured way to conceptualise the situational
awareness and resilience of systems that use PNT data, focusing on three key
levels: perception of (use case) relevant PNT signals and conditions, comprehension
of their significance and impact, and projection of their future status or degradation.
By treating PNT-SA as a discipline with aspects of cybersecurity or air traffic control,
governments and private entities can move from reactive mitigation to proactive
assurance. This includes investing in monitoring networks, integrating alternative1
PNT sources, and institutionalising risk-informed decision-making processes.
It concludes with a call to action: senior leaders must recognise PNT-SA not as a
technical luxury but as a strategic necessity. A comprehensive PNT-SA framework
enables better detection of threats, swifter response to disruptions, and ensures
continuity of operations, enabling the ability to learn and improve. Ultimately
safeguarding organisational and/or national interests in an increasingly contested
and complex operating environment.
