Jamming and spoofing continue to be the key challenges to military use of GNSS. While the production and adoption of M-Code receivers is delayed, defense contractors are developing several approaches to identify, locate and neutralize these threats — including CRPA antennas, embedded GPS inertial (EGI) navigators, software-defined radios and cryptography.

In this month’s cover story, executives from seven companies present their perspectives on the GNSS/PNT challenges faced by U.S. and allied military forces, their market niche in this area, and their latest products.

• Lou Pelosi, vice president, CAST Navigation
• Stig Pedersen, executive vice president of aerospace and defense, Autonomy & Positioning division, Hexagon
• Brandon Malatest, COO, Per Vices Corporation
• Tony Full, director of business development, Navigation Systems, Safran Federal Systems
• Paul Crampton, senior solutions architect, Spirent Federal Systems
• Joel Korsakissok, president, Syntony

Click here to read an exclusive interview with Chuck Stoffer, director of business development and Eric Hughes, design engineer, UHU Technologies

Read the related “Innovation” article.

Photo: Petty Officer 1st Class Thomas Gooley

What are currently the top two or three challenges regarding GNSS/PNT for U.S. and allied military forces? How do you expect that to change in the next three to five years?

CAST Navigation
A top challenge is anti-jamming. GPS signals are low-power and fairly easy to jam. CAST has developed a simulator for testing controlled reception pattern antennas (CRPAs), which are anti-jam antennas. CAST simulators can test CRPAs with two to seven antenna elements.
Another top challenge is preventing our enemies from using GPS in a war zone. M-Code Modernized Navstar Security Algorithm (MNSA) has been designed to support denial of GPS signals to enemy forces. CAST has developed the ability to simulate M-Code MNSA. The company is working closely with the U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command’s GPS Directorate to develop a simulator that supports all their requirements.

Hexagon
Jamming is the key challenge. The secondary challenge is getting necessary protection into fielded systems so they can be used to the full extent of their service life. Over the next three to five years, while new products designed to safeguard PNT infrastructure will emerge, the process of getting these tools authorized and integrated will remain complex.

Per Vices Corporation
GNSS signals can be disrupted or manipulated by adversaries through jamming techniques, leading to potential navigational errors or loss of positioning capabilities. Advanced spoofing techniques also pose significant challenges to GNSS/PNT for U.S. and allied military forces, as they can deceive receivers into providing inaccurate positioning, navigation, and timing information. Both can be addressed with the integration of software-defined radios (SDR) for GNSS/PNT applications where we anticipate a strong push to further advance the different anti-jamming and anti-spoofing techniques in software using high-performance SDR platforms.

Safran Federal Systems
GNSS denial and spoofing. Both challenges are expected to become more pervasive over the coming years as adversarial technologies evolve and are distributed. In the current conflict, systems are driving to become either assured GNSS or built to operate independently of GNSS clock and position information.

Spirent Federal Systems
Adversarial near-peer threats to PNT integrity are developing at an increasingly rapid pace. Navigation warfare (NAVWAR) used to focus within the boundaries of localized geopolitical conflicts, but now space-based, system-wide threats loom large and will present new challenges in the coming years. As PNT continues to evolve, more complex mitigation technologies must be integrated into a layered PNT ecosystem with shortened development and testing phases to be fielded faster.

Syntony
It is not a secret that jamming and spoofing will be the biggest challenges in the coming years: Almost every week, if not every day, we read some news about jammed or spoofed GNSS receivers, either in Eastern Europe or elsewhere.
Technology exists to protect against both threats: authentication, cryptography and CRPA. However, you cannot deliver an M-Code or PRS receiver to every soldier and every vehicle, if for no other reason than the difficulty of broadcasting the keys. The solution will pass by an intermediate level of anti-jamming and anti-spoofing receivers, which do not need them, associated to moderate prices and lighter infrastructure so that everybody and every vehicle can be protected.
For industry, it will pass through the generalization of CRPA architecture for the receivers, even for non-encrypted signals, and even with lower efficiency levels (update rate, J/S, etc.) corresponding to low dynamic movement.
What is your company’s niche regarding military GNSS/PNT?

senior software engineer Neil O’Brien utilizing a…