Image: RNT Foundation
What’s New: An announcement by Hellen Systems and Arqiva that they are offering a commercial eLoran service in the United Kingdom,
Why It’s Important: It is another indication that alternative PNT is becoming more desirable and commercial entities are interested in its many facets.
What Else to Know: Full disclosure – Hellen Systems, Microchip, and Continental Electronics are RNT Foundation members/supporters.
Commercial eLoran to be Offered in the UK
A partnership between Hellen Systems, Inc, and Arqiva has announced plans to develop a commercial eLoran service in the United Kingdom. The announcement was made on the Hellen Systems LinkedIn page.
Citing the need for “sovereign, independent, resilient” PNT alternatives, the partners are seeking to support critical national infrastructure, government, and military users.
eLoran is deployed and operating across China and South Korea. Older versions of Loran are operating in Russia and Saudi Arabia. Yet, aside from a single transmitter in the UK being used as a timing signal, operating Loran systems have been off the air in the west since the European system shut down in deference to Galileo in 2016.
Increasing interference with GNSS signals over the last few years seems to have rekindled western interest in the technology. The European Space Agency recently sponsored a project that produced an eLoran antenna suitable for mobile devices, there are three transmitters on-air in the United States, presumably for testing, and the UK Ministry of Defence has issued a request for information they say will lead to purchase of a deployable eLoran system (the U.S. Air Force operated a deployable capability called Loran-D in the 1970s).
Originally developed and used in World War II, some still view Loran as old technology. Its advocates counter that today’s telephones and televisions are vastly improved over 1940’s technology, and the same is true for eLoran over its older Loran-A and Loran-C versions.
A high-power terrestrial system operating at 100kHz, UK demonstrations with differential eLoran in 2014 showed an accuracy of 10 meters positioning and 50ns timing. The positioning accuracy for the previous version of Loran, Loran-C, was approximately 460 meters absolute accuracy, 90 meters repeatable accuracy, and five microseconds.
Hellen Systems’ President, Bridge Littleton says the partnership is “… excited to bring commercial eLoran to the UK as a unique resilient PNT capability” and cites its advantages as a secure signal able to penetrate deep indoors without the need for an external antenna. The UK frequency regulator, Ofcom, proposed offering commercial eLoran licenses in 2022 and began the process in 2023. Hellen was granted a UK spectrum license for eLoran earlier this year.
The announcement also lists Microchip, Chronos Technology, Ltd, Continental Electronics, and CGI as team members in the project.
