Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: Great article by our friend Logan Scott. While the DOT report on their GPS Backup Tech Demo does have a lot of information, we have to agree it is not the be all and end all on the question of "GPS backups" as some would like. ...

Image: Historic Master Clock at NIST museum in Gaithersburg, MD (RNT Foundation) Blog Editor's Note: It is essential that we secure precise time and sync for our critical infrastructure, AND for everyone else. The US government established precise time as a utility...

Blog Editor's Note: The below is the latest announcement from South Korea on its efforts to establish a sovereign and resilient PNT system.  It builds on other releases we have passed along previously. See for example here and here. Notice the "advantage" South Korea...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: Aviation is somewhat unique among modes of transportation as it has an alternate PNT system for when GPS is not available. It is a network of short range terrestrial beacons of VORs, DMEs, and TACANs (TACAN is military only)....

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: The greatest threat from space debris is unquestionably at LEO. Many in the PNT community have considered GPS, Galileo, and other GNSS at MEO relatively safe from debris. It seems that ain't necessarily so.  Papers on debris at...

Image: AP, Vessel Finder Blog Editor's Note: The below press report discounts this being a prank by the Vessel Finder site, and seems to assume the ship actually sailed this pattern before entering the Suez Canal and getting stuck. Our readers will quickly guess the...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: A very complete summary of where the issue stands today. We are particularly glad to see the comments by Rep John Garamendi who has championed this issue for years.  This article is reprinted with permission of Warren...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: We always find something of interest in Bob Poole's "Aviation Policy News" from the Reason Foundation. This month it is a note he received from a colleague about the FAA and navigation. Bob published in his "Quotable Quotes"...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: It is good to see industry coming together like this. RNT Foundation decided to sign this letter with members of industry, some of which are our members, some are not, because it does not promote an individual technology or...

Blog Editors' Note: The author is President of the RNT Foundation. What Trump Got Wrong About Protecting GPS Users and America By Dana A. Goward, President, Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation MARCH 22, 2021 01:00 PM ET The Global Positioning System has become...

Image: RNTF Blog Editor's Note: We are glad to see members of industry advocating for, not just their own solution, but for a variety of diverse solutions. RNTF has long advocated this system-of-systems approach. See and download the graphic we first posted in 2014....

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: Ms Diana Furchtgott-Roth served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Transportation. She is an adjunct professor of economics at George Washington University, and an RNTF member. We applaud her commentary in the Wall Street...

Image: Shutterstock & NASA Every year there is a 4% chance a major solar storm could damage GPS/GNSS satellites or ionize the upper atmosphere preventing signals from getting through for several days or a week. There is also a .7% chance of a Carrington Event that...

Image: Jamming gear found at chop shop. Cambridgeshire Constabulary Blog Editor's Note: We previously reported on the Mexican government's finding that 85% of truck thefts were aided by GPS jamming devices. While we have not found similar national statistics reported...

Deliberate interference with GNSS by the world's militaries interferes with safe air traffic management, poses risks to aircraft, and imposes extra costs for fuel and transit time, according to a recent EUROCONTROL stakeholder forum. 2,000% increase in GNSS RFI...

Image: Screen captures from WolvesFleet and Jammer-shop We were talking with the folks at Chronos the other day (Chronos is an RNTF corporate member). They mentioned an interesting development. Jammers that look like everyday objects. Check out the image  above for...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: DSI is an RNT Foundation supporter. Mr. Dana A. Goward, RNTF's President, will be moderating this event.   DSI to host 2021 Assured PNT Summit in April February 12, 2021  - By Allison Kral The Defense Strategies Institute’s...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: The author is president of the RNT Foundation. Federal policy aimed at GPS interference, critical infrastructure March 7, 2021  - By Dana Goward In its closing days, the Trump administration issued several new policy documents...

Image: Ken Wells - Cessna instrument panel with and without GPS signals. Blog Editor's Note: A need and promise to invest in GPS interference detection and monitoring was mentioned in just about all the national PNT policy documents issued by the last administration. ...

Image: RNT Foundation Blog Editor's Note: The author is President of the RNT Foundation.   Congressmen urge administration on GPS timing backup March 4, 2021  - By Dana Goward In separate letters to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and new Secretary of...

Image: Twitter Blog editor's note: "Space hurricanes"? Seriously? We knew space was a dangerous place, especially for weak signals from GPS and other GNSS, but this sounds like something from a Star Trek episode. Quantum strings, spatial anomalies, space hurricanes....

Image: Shutterstock Blog editor's note:  Ok, we admit the title of the paper is a little more sophisticated. It is: "Does Radio Frequency Interference to Satellite Navigation pose an increasing threat to Network efficiency, cost-effectiveness and ultimately safety?"...

ION MEMBERS CAN VIEW THE RECORDING OF THIS WEBINAR AT: https://www.ion.org/publications/webinar-mars.cfm   THE INSTITUTE OF NAVIGATION TO HOST WEBINAR: NAVIGATION OF THE MARS 2020 PERSEVERANCE ROVER FROM EARTH TO JEZERO CRATER Manassas Virginia, March 2, 2021...

Image: Copies of Bowditch from 1826 and 1914 nestle with tomes released this month at RNT Foundation World Headquarters Our copy of the long-anticipated "Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century" in two volumes arrived this month. It was...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: This item will likely be of interest to our more technically minded readers. Question for the group - Would using this info in a receiver protect the user from meaconing? News Release: DHS Publishes Free Resources to Protect...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: A good reminder about the importance of GPS to agriculture. Some estimate that today's agriculture is 30% more efficient and food is much less costly and more plentiful than before GPS. If signals were to go away, so would those...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: This paper is another reminder that PNT is infrastructure for a host of technologies, including telecommunications. The better, more resilient the PNT, the better, more resilient our telecoms. This has been a theme at the ATIS...

Image Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: With a passenger aircraft almost crashing into a mountain, drones big enough to kill someone crashing in back yards, and aircraft enroute nearly departing controlled flight, it is no wonder ICAO told its members addressing GNSS...

Blog Editor's Note: We heard this piece from Colorado Public Radio on NPR today. The title was hopeful, but as you will see reading the transcript or listening to the four minute piece here, a lot of the information has a kernel of truth, but is presented in a way...

Our friends in the UK have a series of interesting seminars coming up soon! 18 Feb 21 - Why PNT systems are vulnerable, recent disruption examples and impacts 25 Feb 21 - System requirements, systems-of-systems 11 Mar 21 - Risk assessment & prioritization 25 Mar...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note - There are lots of reasons to worry about GPS vulnerability and our over-reliance on it. Disruptions can lead to accidents (like the near crash of a passenger plane in 2019), a halt to farming operations and digital broadcasts,...

Blog Editor's Note: In the1990's after the advent of GPS, the FAA planned to decommission its ground-based navigation aids and have aircraft rely entirely on space-based systems, essentially GPS and its augments. In 2001 a Volpe Transportation Systems Center report...

Blog Editor's Note; A great five minute video summary of all the bad things that happen when we don't have satellites.  A lot of talk about GPS, as you can imagine, and the need for terrestrial backups for all our space systems. Of course, in addition to the two...

Image: US Dept of Transportation's Volpe Center, credit U.S. DOT Blog Editor's Note: An insightful short piece by highly regarded technologist Logan Scott. While generally finding the DOT report useful, he makes excellent points about things that the report didn't...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: This article by Sputnik is interesting as it has some nuggets of information that haven't been widely known. For one, it reveals their spoofing capability exists simultaneously in hundreds of locations. Earlier analysis of...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: This problem impacted aircraft within 25 miles of the Wilmington, NC airport and had been documented since May 2020. This long standing problem was finally resolved due to the persistence of the airport 's highly dedicated...

Image: Lotte Camillia Holst Hansen, NRK The report was completed on the 19th of December 2019. With the speed of government, it was reviewed, approved and finally posted for public viewing on the 18th of December 2020. Titled "GNSS/GPS Disruptions in Aviation," the...

Blog Editor's Note: The author is president of the RNT Foundation. James Litton, GPS and precision ag pioneer, dies January 26, 2021 By Dana Goward James Litton James D. Litton, GPS pioneer and founder of NavCom Technology Inc., died over the weekend at his home in...

Image: George Mason University Blog Editor's Note: The author is president of the RNT Foundation. University revises PNT backgrounder In response to concerns January 26, 2021  - By Dana Goward George Mason University has revised a briefing paper on positioning,...

NOAA / NASA Drone.  NASA Image Blog Editor's Note: We were interested to see this navigation sensor fusion effort sponsored by NOAA. According to Jack Elston at Black Swift, the $400K contract will result in a prototype navigation receiver that will probably fly first...

Professor Robert Hampshire. Univ. Michigan Photo President Biden has appointed Professor Robert Hampshire from the University of Michigan as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). DOT is the...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: Great opinion piece by Kate Murphy of the NY Times. Not much new in here for our regular readers, but very good to see this in such a well respected and widely read outlet. Note that she says the RNT Foundation "...advocates for...

Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: Perhaps the title of this article should have been "GPS Jamming Set to Crash Passenger Aircraft."  One thing I learned in Aviation Safety Officer school is that aircraft accidents are not random. If you are paying attention, you can...

Blog Editor's Note: One hour and fourteen minutes before its end, the Trump administration published the "National Research and Development Plan for PNT Resilience." Does it matter?  Many of those who authored it are no longer in a position to do anything about it....

Monty Johnson of OPNT demonstrates precise time transfer through 100 kilometers of spooled fiber-optic cable. (Photo: RNT Foundation) Blog Editor's Note: The article's author is President of the RNT Foundation.     DOT report: L-band, UHF, LF and fiber PNT...

Blog Editor's Note: This is an interesting companion article to our last blog post in which a rep of the UAV industry talked about the need to protect drones from GPS interference. We hasten to point out that this FAA approval for BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight)...

Image: UK Aircraft Accident Investigation Board Blog Editor's Note: We wonder how many UAVs have already been lost because of interference. The only formal accident report we have seen is from the UK. We imagine there are a lot of incentives for drone operators to not...

Image: Shutterstock Blog Editor's Note: In the context of this journal "ITS" stands for "Intelligent Transportation Systems."   Resilient wireless navigation and time are key for improved transportation systems, whether it is traffic flow, signal coordination, or...

The National Maritime Cybersecurity Plan issued on the 2nd of December and recently made available joins a list of national strategies and plans addressing security for the 95% of all U.S. trade that depends on maritime. It outlines a number of challenges and threats...

Image: RNT Foundation The Department of Transportation, Office of Research and Technology, is looking to hire a senior spectrum engineer for work on a wide variety of transportation issues.  The position is a GS-15 program manager job with a salary range of $142K to...