Photo: RistoArnaudov / E+ / Getty Images The United Kingdom is investing £155 million to safeguard positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services.
Research shows that just a 24-hour outage of satellite navigation services could cost the UK economy £1.4 billion.
In recent years, hostile actors have jammed or spoofed PNT services, demonstrating potential threats to key services. PNT can also be affected by natural events like solar flares from the sun.
The £155 million funding was announced Wednesday by Science Minister Lord Vallance at the Royal Institute of Navigation’s annual PNT Leadership Seminar, which brings together researchers, innovators and business leaders from across the sector.
The investment includes initial work to provide PNT that is independent of signals from satellites, making it harder to jam or spoof; PNT resilience at the National Physical Laboratory; and a new system to proactively monitor for threats to the UK’s PNT services.
The £155 million funding consists of:
- £71 million to begin work on a UK National Enhanced Long-Range Navigation (eLoran) program, providing PNT across land, air and sea independent of signals from satellites, and hard to jam or spoof.
- £68 million for further development of the National Timing Centre (NTC) program. The NTC is being delivered by the National Physical Laboratory to develop the UK’s first nationally distributed time infrastructure. As well as boosting resilience, it could help with innovative new uses of technologies like 5G, satellite communications, and self-driving vehicles.
- £13 million for work on a UK GNSS interference monitoring program, to deliver a world-leading capability for the UK to monitor and react to threats to PNT signals, like jamming and spoofing.
- £3 million for the Space-Based Time Transfer R&D program. This will develop the technology required to deliver global timing systems independent of GPS and other GNSS.
“Having resilient and enduring access to Position, Navigation and Timing Services is a critical part of life in today’s world, and a major plank in the UK’s national security,” Vallance said. “So many of the things we take for granted every day, from using our phones to planning a journey, simply couldn’t happen without it. The UK is a leader in this field, but in an uncertain world we cannot be complacent. The funding we are announcing today will ultimately help protect Britain from the risks posed to PNT, from both accidental outages and hostile acts, safeguarding everyone’s wealth and wellbeing.”
“Strengthening the UK’s PNT capabilities will give direction to our growing PNT industry, supporting the wider economy and national renewal, whilst cementing the UK’s position as a global PNT leader,” Vallance said.
Today’s news comes after a substantial year of progress for UK PNT. The government agreed to closer work with both the US and France around PNT resilience, as part of September’s UK-US Technology Prosperity Deal and July’s UK-France Summit.
DSIT published a Call for Evidence on PNT growth in June, seeking views on the PNT market and R&D landscape in the UK, as well as the barriers to market entry, commercialisation, and user adoption. We will publish a summary of our findings later this year.
