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What’s new: A report about how the UK is leading the west in resilient PNT.
Why it’s important:
- Systems – There is no silver bullet. But at the same time governments can’t pay for and incorporate dozens of systems. They need to ensure there is a core PNT architecture that:
- Makes utility-level PNT sufficiently robust most adversaries look elsewhere to cause trouble, and
- Others can build on to by integrating their own improvements and adding systems to the architecture (just like has been done with GPS!)
- The UK seems to be implementing a Core National PNT Architecture with a fiber/clock network, eLoran, and GPS, Galileo, and perhaps their own space-based augmentation with OneWeb or another system.
- Governance – National PNT resilience is not achievable without leadership and coordination. Even if multiple and diverse systems are implemented, without some kind of coordination there will undoubtedly be seems and gaps that can be exploited by adversaries. – The UK has that leadership and coordination mechanism with its cross-government PNT office.
What else to know: We have long thought that a “Sovereign PNT Package” would be a great economic and diplomatic asset to whatever country developed it. Such a tech stack could enable a country to cooperate with GPS and Galileo, but also gave it the ability to produce and control its own PNT if space went away or the great powers began to fuss.
