GPS on the fritz? Britain and France plot a backup plan Britain and France are to work more closely on technology to back up the familiar Global Positioning System (GPS), which is increasingly subject to interference in many regions around the world. The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) announced the move along with a number of other joint UK-France science …
As a radio amateur I was always conscious of the musical sounds of LORAN on Top Band (1.8-2.0 mHz). GPS and money saving effectively killed it.
It seems that we have come full circle. With lots of local processing LORAN would be much easier to use than the original system which relied on good operators.
Back in the early 70’s, I worked part-time as a deckhand on a research vessel. At that time, there was a string of LORAN transmitter all along the coastline. My captain would tune into the transmitters to get a directional fix of each, and then triangulate our position on a big paper map laid out on a navigation table.The captain had a little black notebook with the coordinates of undersea pinnacles of interest, where the fish tended to congregate. The position fix is remarkably good, getting us to within tens of yards of the pinnacle peaks, with the final positioning based on sonar.
I’m fairly sure the EU’s Galileo was designed so signal blocking/spoofing was not a thing.
TBH I think there is more chance of US GPS system disruption through malicious actions of Agent Orange.
“USA unfairly pays for that”… GPS subscription if you are not a registered Republican.
Galileo has some of the augmentation/validation features that came out of the FAA's requirements for GPS / WAAS to at least detect spoofing
Jamming is still a thing because signals are weak
Part of the reason for Galileo was the risk that a future US president might be less cooperative and could threaten European GPS use.
But, like the other threats to soft-power, if the US is too heavy handed in using GPS to threaten partners they will just drive commercial users to rely more on Galileo + Chinese systems
I'm guessing pilots are not trained to use 'em (that was the old navigator's job). Plus there is no little dome in the cokpit to take a reading. Maybe equip aircraft them with a 4k skyward looking cam and a some virtual sextant code. Stars (including our own) are hard to shift/jam.
I guess the very ubiquity of GPS is what made it such a target for bad actors. But it has also suffered from a lack of investment and development since it was made more generally available. This is really the risk of any monoculture.
As we're seeing with some of the autonomous vehicles, a return to a set of complementary and redundant systems for greater resilience if any one fails is becoming popular again.
¿What do you mean monoculture?
For civilian use you have GPS, Galileo, Glonnas, baidu (and in the future, you will have UK's OneWeb) , all of them work worldwide and if you are near india you have also the regional NavIC. You can do a weighted average of many/all the positions and/or timestamps*, and plan accordingly.
For military use is the same (weighted average), but depending on your alignments, you will have less options to choose from...
* I guess if you are an european or USoAn or 5 eyes, you will concede more weight to GPS and Galileo than to GLONASS or Baidu, meanwhile, If you are a russian, chinese or NorK, you will give more weight to Glonnas and baidu. And, if you, like me are in LatAm, you could not care less, and give the same weght to all the global ones ;-)
The F-35 can use it's cameras to compare the ground topology to reference map data to find it's location.
Since they spend so much time there, a return of "you are in the maintenance hanger" will be a correct location for more than half the time. And talking of that tech-driven wonder, have I missed a Reg article on the latest NAO damnation of the misbegotten project in the past week?
The F-35 can use it's cameras to compare the ground topology to reference map data to find it's location.
Unless your enemies are in featureless Middle Eastern deserts.
Of course since people who live in such desolate wastelands could never represent a credible threat to us, we would never need to attack them
Of course since people who live in such desolate wastelands could never represent a credible threat to us, we would never need to attack them
Your logic is wrong there. US defense planners do see a need to attack them, but also know that them furrin people in fancy dress are all the same. So long as the brave US military attack and kills some, then the job is done. And therefore the inaccuracy of topology referencing navigation doesn't matter. Seems they've sold the same technology to Israel.
A company in Europe announced such a system recently. I think it's about £100,000 or something like that. It has a high resolution camera looking skywards to fix the position from celestial navigation. As it's for planes, you are well above the weather for most of a flight. In between fixes you can use modern highly accurate inertial navigation.
The intended market for it is for planes who can no longer rely on satellite navigation. It may be expensive, but it's a small fraction of the cost of an airliner.
The problem with GPS (and similar technologies) is that it is being used by drones in current wars in various parts of the world to find their targets. The countries on the receiving end are therefore jamming or spoofing the GPS signals to misdirect the drone attacks. So for example Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries near St. Petersburg have caused the Russians to jam or spoof GPS signals, which in turn affects airliners as far away as Estonia.
The over reliance on GPS for all sorts of things is a serious issue, and legislation is needed to ensure that providers of any critical infrastructure do not rely on it to provide important services. The story gives an example of time-stamping of business transactions, which gives a clue as to how widespread the use of it is. Given how many people rely on debit and don't carry cash, imagine how disruptive it would be if all payment networks were down because they couldn't timestamp transactions.
>The intended market for it is for planes who can no longer rely on satellite navigation
It's great for the over the oceans,cruising at 30,000ft, stage of the flight - where you don't need to know where you are anyway.
It's less useful in the, descending onto a runway at 250km/h when you are trying to ensure you arrive with a positive altitude stage where GPS replaced all those expensive precision approach systems
Yes, the stories about how Estonia were being affected by GPS jamming in Russia (as part of the latter's drone defences) said the Estonians had scrapped their local electronic approach systems and went to full reliance on GPS to save money. They now have to look at putting those systems back in as they can't rely on GPS.
This is a lesson for everybody else as well. GPS is a nice to have, but we shouldn't have anything critical relying on it.
Hopefully when the do build their new ILS, they don't put it on a concrete wall at the end of the runway
> It's less useful in the, descending onto a runway at 250km/h when you are trying to ensure you arrive with a positive altitude stage where GPS replaced all those expensive precision approach systems
No, GBAS has not replaced ILS, at least not in Europe due to concerns about spoofing, jamming, availability, and cost. Moreover, GBAS also uses a VHF data-link to send correctional information bringing the system to the same precision as a CAT-III ILS. In any case, if an IFR approach is not possible, the pilots will do a VFR approach. It's not like if GPS is jammed / spoofed planes will start falling from the sky. The aviation world has strict rules about contingency measures, backups, and cross-checks which have been written in blood.
> Sextant Alert - ......there is no little dome in the cockpit to take a reading.
The first versions of the Lockheed Constellation (big tri-tail) did have a plexiglass dome abaft the cockpit. The Constellation was flying far from radio beacons.
A navigator got sucked-out at high altitude. Meanwhile radio beacons improved, and Lockheed quit putting domes in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Lockheed_Constellation March 10, 1947
But we're told that high power long range LF transmission is impossible because the Chinese don't supply valves any more, that's why R4LW and the power teleswitches etc are being shut down.
Or is it that harmonics of eLORAN would blot out Test Match Special, so that's why R4LW is shutting down?
No, it is down to money.
The claim is Radio 4 on LW has too few listeners to justify its continued operating expense, let alone upgrading its transmitter (which would save a lot of energy with more modern amplifier design, but means investment). Of course there are many areas that don't get coverage by other means, and LW works out at sea beyond most other methods (other than going for starlink & IP radio, etc).
That's why the BBC is cracking down on access to the BBC sounds app.
Argh. Don't remind me. I've tried using the bbc app instead, but it's completely crap compared the the sounds app (which was somewhere between bad and mediocre). The bbc app provides a small fraction of the offerings — but it doesn't really matter because it's impossible to find anything even if it is there. When the 21st rolls around and they shut down the bbc sounds app, I'll probably just give up on listening to BBC radio shows that aren't available via RSS as "podcasts".
They all operate in the same way, with the same very low power signal at the same frequencies.
Galileo adds a few signal assurance features, which things like WAAS added to GPS and military bands add more security but that doesn't help with things like shipping or self driving cars
They don’t all operate the same way in terms of this specific question. Some have signing solutions which entirely defeat spoofing. There are multiple problems to solve here yet we seem to be using terms interchangeably. Jamming is common to all due to the low power signals, spoofing is very much a solved problem (not for civilians, but it is solved).
Jamming is common to all due to the low power signals, spoofing is very much a solved problem (not for civilians, but it is solved).
Spoofing is somewhat solved for civilians. Galileo has been broadcasting an OSNMA signal for several years - albeit in a "Public Observation" mode, which is on the verge of becoming "Production". RAIM and RAIM+ also help standard receivers detect anomalous signals. RAIM has been mandated in maritime receivers since 2003.
OSNMA-capable receiver boards are publicly available. They're not cheap by consumer standards, but perfectly within the normal range for commercial applications like RTK for construction & agriculture (albeit, these are somewhat reisstant to spoofing anyway as you have local transmitters giving you cm-precise corrections), as well as civilian aviation/maritime navigation.
The main issue is just the natural installed base of hardware. When Trinity discontinued their DGPS network in 2022, the stakeholder survey found everyone was using GPS, 40% were also using GLONASS and only 9% were using Galileo, which seems low but is unsurprising if you consider that maritime hardware receivers and digital charts will be updated significantly less frequently than people's iPhones. They came to the conclusion that as most people had post-2003 RAIM-capable hardware, and updates/new installs would be naturally multi-constellation, the users didn't really need DGPS for integrity any more (even though a majority of mariners reported using it for accuracy and integrity). Those needing high precision for coastal hydrography, etc were probably running their own base RTK as well, and/or would be paying for the Galileo High Precision signal.
They're all vulnerable. The problem is that signals are being spoofed or blocked to defend against drone attacks in countries that are involved in a war. That includes Ukraine, Russia, Israel, and perhaps others. Neighbouring countries are also affected by signal spill over, which is why it's a problem in for example Estonia.
People have for years been ringing the alarm bells about over dependence upon satellite navigation signals, including its use for things like timing signals in non-navigation applications. The drone wars have suddenly made this a real problem that we have to deal with.
Anyone who is currently using any sort of satellite navigation signal, including for purposes other than navigation, needs to be doing their research right now on alternative measures for conducting business without it.
As said previously there must be a lot of things to fix on using modern technology. Accurate time keeping is not a problem, we have a much better handle on currents so dead reckoning between fixes will be better. Should've kept all the lighthouses though so when you make landfall in the middle of the night you can get an accurate fix and don't hit the rocks. I'm sure someone can come up with some kit that combines several sources of data to be almost as accurate as GPS. Ultimately there's a good reason for training navigators to do it the old way.
I was wondering a while ago when the GPS jamming in the Ukraine conflict made the news whether drones could navigate by triangulation from the existing transmitters of well known public broadcasters.
If as is stands with not enough precision perhaps covertly inserting high resolution timing information into transmissions might.
The simple answer is yes, signals of opportunity can be used.
The more comprehensive answer is it is difficult to do, as you need directive antennas (as most are not synchronised so you cannot use time-delay information) and also other means of determining what a given signal actually is & from where since many do not have a unique and non-spoofable code embedded in them.
A practical use-case is Google maps, etc using WiFi SSID and similar to give you positions indoors, but that also meant surveying/slurping all sorts of data as they rolled out the street view mapping. If outdoors GPS is fine, if you can't get GPS but do get WiFi you are almost certainly in a building and from the street the SSID suggests 'X'.
Just to add you don't strictly need directional antennas if you are using the Doppler from multiple LEO passes, but that takes a long time and demands a stable frequency reference, etc. The old US 'Transit' system used that method until replaced by GPS in the 80s onwards.
Yes, we worked on it in the 80s/90s - even had a prototype "mobile" phone that triangulated on FM radio transmitters
Drawback was that it needed a data link to a fixed site, which isn't a problem now with ubiquitous data but added to the cost/power/complexity then
Then everyone was building GPS chips into their phones anyway and they became cheap commodities.
They can triangulate to cell towers, which already broadcast timing information and are at fixed/known locations. Perhaps a 5G addendum could increase the quality of that timing information and make it even more useful for navigation (especially in the air where many towers can be seen at once, but even on the ground in many places)
Now sure cellular can be jammed as well but there are many cellular bands covering huge swathes of spectrum and the signals are stronger than GPS so it would be much more difficult to achieve.
Most cell towers depend upon GPS for time/frequency control so they don't really offer any solution to a GPS-denied region.
You could arrange alternative synchronisation methods but its hard to get the sort of precision needed at the sort of prices folks are prepared to pay.
Once towers have the time signal if it isn't that expensive to maintain that time, they'd have to use something a bit more expensive than the RTC in a PC but some very highly accurate timing circuits are readily available. There are also protocols like PTP that can deliver nanosecond accuracy clock syncing over the network (i.e. via the fiber the tower is connected to the cellular company's intranet with) which obviously isn't as good as GPS but if you can see 4 towers at once would still provide position to within 10 meters if my back of the envelope math is correct.
It may all become less of a problem because there's been a lot of progress in the last few years with inertial guidance systems, which can maintain accurate position information just based on the receiver's own acceleration changes over time. You'd only need one high quality position lock at the start of movement and then wouldn't need ANY radio based updates whether from GPS, LORAN or theoretical 5G upgrades.
There are also protocols like PTP that can deliver nanosecond accuracy clock syncing over the network
AFIK you need all switches to support PTP to get that sort of accuracy on a LAN, I strongly suspect you won't get near that level of time stability going over routers / public WAN which would be how a lot of towers get ultimately connected.
Of course those networks could be upgraded and towers fitted with rubidium clocks for higher stability when faced with greater reference timing jitter, etc, etc, but again I doubt any of the telcos are willing to cover the cost, and just look at the expensive debacle of trying to remove Huawei from many western telcos on gov insistence.
Also adopted?
It was created by the American military for a variety of civilian purposes. This is the nature of "military" pork-barreling in the USA. It sometimes pisses of the Military that they have to carry all kinds of crap in their budged, like the Air Force operating GPS, but the flip side is that it's how the US military is funded: they get their share of the pork too. They got their free ride on the development of a civilian nav aid, GPS.
Such a shame we binned our existing e-Loran network in 2015 just 12 months after it received initial operational capability.
The good news is that eLoran is not new. It's established, which means plenty of receivers are compatible. When you do roll it out there's a good installed base who will benefit immediately.
And whilst it's a fully independent nav system (around ±8metre accuracy), it can also carry a DGPS signal, which would seem like a very sensible thing to do since Trinity closed out their Maritime DGPS Service in 2022 (predominatently because it needed replacement and it seemed like multi-constellation GNSS would do the job going forward). If the government wants to pay Trinity to install that kit on select lighthouses, that would seem a sensible thing to do (the marginal cost of running it is presumably quite low, well within regular maintenance patterns for lighthouses. It's just the question of procuring and installing the hardware).
The upcoming LEO constellations seem promising in providing a signal that is hard to jam or spoof. Signal strength is ~1000 higher than MEO (GPS/Galileo) and accuracy is tolerable (50 m in practice). Miniature receivers are already available fot Iridium STL, and hopefully OneWeb will use the same bands. Not sure if Starlink has any means of providing a timing or position signal though ...
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