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Home »Are YOU Prepared for a Solar Storm? World Will Get 12 hours Warning if the Sun Erupts
By Richard Gray The British government has released its Space Weather Preparedness Strategy warning of a major solar storm that could trigger power cuts and travel disruption. GPS systems could be down for up to 3 days, resulting in widespread chaos. The report urges...
“You Have Put This Nation At Risk!”
Saying that there will be a major GPS outage some day and that America “absolutely has to have a backup system,” Congressman John Garamendi (D, CA) joined several other members of Congress at a hearing yesterday chastising the administration for its lack of movement...
Europe Satellite Agency Seems to Endorse eLoran for Resilience
In a post entitled "Resilient Navigation in Demanding Maritime Environments" dated 23 July 2015, the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency discusses the dangers of depending upon just space signals and the need for resiliency. "But with the increased...
“We’ve got a problem!” – Congressman John Garamendi
Speaking to the DC section of the Institute of Navigation last Wednesday, Congressman John Garamendi (D, CA) voiced his serious concern about the government’s inaction to protect GPS. Pointing out that President Clinton had first sounded the alarm in 1998 about the...
New Initiative: Commercially Owned Low Frequency Wireless Timing & Navigation – based on eLoran
We were surprised and pleased to get an invitation last week that read: "The General Lighthouse Authorities (GLA) of the UK and Ireland are delighted to invite you to attend the launch of a new commercially owned and operated international low frequency wireless...
Congressional Hearing on Federal Radionavigation Plan – What’s the Issue?
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee announced this week that it will hold a hearing on the 28th of July at ten o'clock in room 2253 of the Rayburn Building. According to the announcement, it will be "A Hearing on the Federal Radionavigation Plan,...
Arab Institute of Navigation 2016 Conference Announced
The biannual Melaha Conference "GNSS WAY Ahead" is back next year on the beautiful beaches of the Red Sea front. GNSS Way Ahead will offer an ideal opportunity to pursue continuing navigational education, to learn about recent advances, and likely future developments....
Timing is Everything for Securing Wireless Communications
By Steven Chabinsky In Christian Science Monitor "Passcode" If you think that computer intrusions are the main thing we need to worry about when it comes to cybersecurity, think again. There's growing concern about the implications of our increasingly wireless world...
Congressman Speaks On Time at US Naval Observatory, July 22
Local chapters of the Institute of Navigation don’t normally meet at a global center of excellence, nor are they usually addressed by members of Congress. But both of those are happening Thursday, July 22nd. The program for the evening is “Keeping and Sharing Time –...
Thad Allen Discusses eLoran at GEOINT 2015
By GPS World Staff In this exclusive interview, Admiral Thad Allen, former commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, discusses PNT alternatives to GPS for navigation, including eLoran and the activation June 19 of a signal on an eLoran tower in preparation for a timing...
U.S. Secretary of Defense Wants to Move Past GPS to MEMS-Based Navigation, PNT Experts Doubtful
By Dee Ann Divis Ashton Carter, the new U.S. Secretary of Defense has been making clear he supports moving past GPS to a disbursed network based on microelectromechanical systems or MEMS for position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information. Carter, who was tapped to...
GPS-Related Provisions in Congress’ Defense (NDAA) Bills
Information from "GPS Bulletin" 1 July 2015, with thanks to editor Chris Mindnich (see www.gps.gov/congress) The following items are included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bills for fiscal year 2016 now under consideration in Congress: National...
Europe Looks at Time & Sync Requirements – DEMETRA Public Abstract
The EU has released this description of their DEMETRA project. It should be of interest to the entire timing and sync community. [big_button...
Europe Looks at Time & Sync Requirements – DEMETRA Workshop 17 July 2015
The European Union is concerned about time and synchronization as a critical component of industry and infrastructure and has been studying the issue for a while. [big_button url="https://rntfnd.org/wp-content/uploads/DEMETRA-Workshop-1-Flyer.pdf"]Read...
Slide Show of Congressman LoBiondo at Wildwood
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Congressman LoBiondo “Throws the Switch” on eLoran
You have to get past the weeds in the sun baked parking lot carved out of the beach grass and sea-grape tangle. Then you go around to the back and through a locked door. The air is a bit stale as you enter a dimly lit warehouse room filled with massive, 1950’s era electronic equipment. Along the walls are storage racks stuffed with boxes of spare equipment.
Air Force To Boost Budget to Prepare for Conflicts in Space
National Defense - June 2015 By Stew Magnuson A potential conflict on Earth that escalates into space has prompted the Air Force to find and extra $5 billion to spend on offensive and defensive systems to protect national security satellites. Read More [big_button...
Device Tracks Soldiers’ Movements without GPS
By GPS World Staff When GPS satellites can’t be seen due to dense jungle canopy, or they are blocked due to enemy interference, soldiers will still be able to track their location digitally using the Warfighter Integrated Navigation System (WINS), a device now under...
Father of GPS on IMUs, eLoran, GPS
At the 15th meeting of the National PNT Advisory Board last week in Annapolis, the board’s vice chair and generally recognized “father of GPS”, Dr. Brad Parkinson, made the case for using a combination of GPS, eLoran and inertial systems in order to achieve the nation’s goal of “Assured PNT.”
Baidu Kicks Off Its ‘Indoor GPS’ Rollout In China
BY MICHELE CHANDLER, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY China search leader Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) has begun the rollout of indoor location services powered by indoor mapping provider IndoorAtlas to the 270 million monthly active users of its Baidu Maps service. IndoorAtlas had...
What Would Happen If All Our Satellites Were Suddenly Destroyed?
George Dvorsky Filed to: DAILY EXPLAINER Since their inception 60 years ago, satellites have gone on to become an indispensable component of our modern high-tech civilization. But because they’re reliable and practically invisible, we take their existence for granted....
New tool could predict large solar storms more than 24 hours in advance
R&Dmag.com by Hayley Dunning, Imperial College London Large magnetic storms from the Sun, which affect technologies such as GPS and utility grids, could soon be predicted more than 24 hours in advance. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are eruptions of gas and...
Guided-Bomb Makers Anticipate GPS Jammers
Defense News by Joe Gould WASHINGTON — The makers of precision-guided munitions no longer take for granted that simple GPS-guidance systems will always work on their own. Jammers and spoofing equipment threaten to populate future battlefields; manufacturers have taken...
Federal Radionavigation Plan Touches on NDGPS, eLoran
May 27, 2015 - By GPS World staff The 2014 Federal Radionavigation Plan, just released from the U.S. Department of Transportation, touches on funding for the Nationwide Differential GPS and the use of eLoran as a precision timing alternative. The plan is signed by the...
‘GPS of the Aisles’ – LEDs and Indoor Positioning
Supermarket LED lights talk to smartphone app By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor, BBC News French shoppers have become the first to experience a new LED lighting system that sends special offers and location data to their smartphones. [big_button url="[big_button...
Breaking News: Agreement for eLoran Test Signal In US!
Today, the US Department of Homeland Security agreed with the Exelis and UrsaNav Corporations to put an eLoran signal on the air for testing and demonstration.
US Agrees to Putting Test eLoran Signal On Air
Today, the US Department of Homeland Security agreed with the Exelis and UrsaNav Corporations to put an eLoran signal on the air for testing and demonstration at former Loran-C sites. The goal of the effort is to test eLoran as a complement to the GPS system and for a...
Jammer Hunting with a UAV
GPS World By James Spicer, Adrien Perkins, Louis Dressel, Mark James, Yu-Hsuan Chen, Sherman Lo , David S. De Lorenzo and Per Enge, Stanford University A fully autonomous, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based system for locating GPS jammers, currently under...
US Weighs UAS-Friendly GPS Backup System
Inside Unmanned Systems By Dee Ann Divis The comment period is about to close on a potential navigation backup system for GPS that could be very useful for unmanned systems. Enhanced Loran or eLoran is an invigorated version of the old Loran system formerly operated...
Euroship Installs GPS Backup Techology
Marine Technology by Laura Stackhouse Ship management company, EuroShip Services Ltd, has installed eLoran as a back up to GPS to ensure the safety of its vessels operating off the coast of the UK. Read More
Exelis upgrades and tests GPS threat detection technology
From Intelligent Aerospace Exelis engineers have enhanced the company’s Signal Sentry 1000, which detects and locates sources of intentional and unintentional interference to GPS signals, with sensors that increase detection accuracy to better pinpoint the jamming...
What if a Cybersecurity Attack Shut Down Our Ports?
By Lily Hay Newman in Slate It’s a real, and frightening, possibility. It’s easy to forget when you’re on dry land that 90 percent of the world’s goods are shipped on boats. While we worry about the cybersecurity of power grids and nuclear missile silos, most of us...
Jammers Used to Disrupt Global Supply Chain
Here is an advisory from US Customs and Border Protection that shows how jammers are confounding the efforts of yet another governmental agency. [big_button url="https://rntfnd.org/wp-content/uploads/CPB-gps-jamming.pdf"]Read More[/big_button]
House Funding Bill Could Fuel Scrutiny of OCX, GPS Backup Options
Inside GNSS by Dee Ann Divis The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) is considering legislation that would fully authorize the White House’s funding request for GPS and possibly add provisions aimed at evaluating the new, troubled GPS ground system and pushing the...
Ash Carter’s Idea of Disruptive Innovation: Unplug the Military From GPS
National Defense magazine By Sandra I. Erwin One of the Pentagon’s best-known inventions, the GPS satellite, could be replaced in the foreseeable future by technology that is far cheaper and more resistant to jamming. Finding an alternative to GPS not only could save...
DARPA looks beyond GPS for positioning, navigating, and timing (from “Physics Today”)
By David Kramer Cold-atom interferometry, microelectromechanical systems, signals of opportunity, and atomic clocks are some of the technologies the defense agency is pursuing to provide precise navigation when GPS is unavailable. [big_button...
60 Minutes “The Battle Above”
Did you see “60 Minutes” last night on CBS? David Martin did an excellent piece called “The Battle Above” about America’s dependence on space and the threats posed by anti-satellite weapons, especially from the Chinese. It featured interviews with General Hyten, commander of Space Command, and Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James.
In GPS+ We Trust
Bernie Madoff. Enron. Michael and Lowell Milken. That red sports car you bought second hand when you were in college. It doesn’t matter how great something or someone looks, or how well they seem to perform if you can’t trust them. A lack of integrity in a person or a technology means that, sooner or later, they /it are going to let you down.
Indoor Never Looked Better – Member iPosi Featured
RNT Foundation member iPosi (the "Pos" is pronounced as in "position" so - "eye-pos-ee") was the main focus of an "GPS World" article about how far indoor positioning has come. Congratulations to CEO Rich Lee and his team for their successes and for getting this great...
GPS Terrestrial Complement/Backup Bill Gathering Support
The Congress is back in session this week and HR 1678, a bill that would require establishment of a strong, difficult-to-disrupt terrestrial system to complemment GPS, and to serve as another source of PNT when GPS isn't available, has been referred to the Committee...
SPAWAR wants white papers: Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing (APNT)
New FedBizOps Posting: The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), in support of the Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (PEO C4I) Communications Program Office (PMW/A 170), and Program Executive Office...
Drones, Wither Goest?
If something is really important you need more than one. You don’t need to have a degree in safety or systems engineering to know that. A Washington Post report last year showed that large autonomous aircraft are particularly vulnerable to GNSS as a single point of failure.
Google’s Cerf & DOD’s Halvorsen – Different, but Complementary, Views on APNT
Vint Cerf and Terry Halvorsen offered interesting and different, yet complementary, observations on the importance of assured PNT at last night’s RNT Foundation dinner. The event at the Metropolitan Club, hosted by former FAA Administrator Langhorne Bond, was attended by a broad cross section of members from industry, government and academia.
From Harriman’s A4 to Future Nav
While the cherry blossoms are only just beginning to make themselves known, tomorrow (Wednesday the 8th of April) is still going to be a great day to visit Washington, DC for members of the PNT community.
New GPS/eLoran Bill in Congress
Yesterday, a bi-partisan group of legislators led by Congressman John Garamendi (D, CA) introduced a bill that would require the Secretary of Defense to establish a backup for the Global Positioning System (GPS). Called the “National Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2015,” it was co-sponsored by Congressmen Duncan Hunter (R, CA), Peter DeFazio (D, OR), and Frank LoBiondo (R, NJ).
Vint Cerf, Terry Halvorsen, New FRN Add Spice to RNT Annual Dinner
This week’s Federal Register Notice (FRN) that the government is considering eLoran to complement and backup GPS, and asking for public comment, is sure to add a lot of interest to the RNT Foundation’s annual dinner meeting. The FRN and a recent RFI for 50,000 eLoran...
“Do We Want Faster Horses?”
Henry Ford is reputed to have once remarked “If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said “faster horses.” The federal government might be facing a similar challenge with the Federal Register Notice it published this week about Complementary Positioning, Navigation and Timing. In it they asked for public comment about whether establish eLoran in the US would be useful and if it would be used.
US Announces it is Considering eLoran – Wants Public Comment
U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Dennis Cantrell While there were a few coding problems the first time the Government Printing Office (GPO) posted it on line, the Abstract portion of the Federal Register Notice that our web crawler discovered...
European Navigation Conference 2015
The 2015 ENC conference will be hosted by the Institut Français de Navigation (IFN) and TOPOS Aquitaine and will be held April 7 through 10 at Centre de Congrès Cité mondiale in Bordeaux, France. It will be a showcase for state-of-the-art technology and for...
US Losing Internet Lead?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) publicized a report yesterday that outlined how further development of the internet, specifically the “Internet of Things,” will be hampered by the lack of an effective time signal. Interestingly, this “lack of effective time” could be a problem for the US, and for many third world countries, but not for Russia, China, Europe and others.
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This is your brain on GPS – New Hampshire Public Radio Podcast
Image: The Longleat Hedge Maze in Wiltshire, England. Public domain. What's New: A different look at GPS. How using it is affecting our brains and behavior. Why It's Important: Technology should not be about technology. It should be about users and how it makes life...
Ukraine Destroys an Offshore Platform Used for GPS Spoofing – Maritime Executive
Image: Typical Offshore Platform - Shutterstock What's New: Ukraine destroying another Russia facility that interfered with GPS transmissions. Why It's Important: Ship navigation and safety systems like AIS use GPS. Russia has been disrupting GPS signals in the Black...
White House advisory group blasts US government, DoD inattention to GPS woes – Breaking Defense
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Another report and perspective on the PNT Advisory Board's recent memo to the Deputy Secretaries of Defense and Transportation. Why It's Important: The previous media on this was in GPS World, an industry journal. Breaking Defense has...
The growing threat to GPS is a cyber issue – Stephen Dye on LinkedIn
Image: Stephen Dye What's New: Another voice pointing out that PNT (and therefore GPS) is a critical IT component and therefore disruptions are cyber problems. Why It's Important: This is not widely recognized. For example, neither the National Cybersecuriity Strategy...