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Navigating sovereignty: The strategic imperative of securing PNT systems in a more divided world

Published on 15 January 2025 Read 25 min

In a world where national sovereignty is increasingly vital, GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) technology – known as GPS (Global Positioning System, the United States of America version of GNSS, as Galileo for Europe) – has become a critical component across various strategic sectors to ensure national security, economic stability, and technological advancement. At its core, GNSS provides PNT— Positioning, Navigation, and Timing—services, which are essential for numerous applications. Positioning allows accurate determination of geographic locations, navigation enables precise movement and route planning, and timing ensures synchronization across systems. Together, these PNT services are the foundation of GNSS technology.
In this article, Alcimed delves into the essential role of GNSS technology, particularly its PNT capabilities, its alternative solutions and the associated challenges of maintaining sovereignty over these systems.

What are the applications of PNT in major industries?

In defense, PNT data enables precise and efficient military operations, vital for national security. Accurate positioning ensures that assets, such as troops and equipment, are deployed effectively, while timing ensures synchronized operations across multiple units. In civil aviation, it ensures safe and optimized flights, reducing costs and enhancing safety. The maritime industry relies on PNT for the seamless transportation of goods worldwide by, for example, helping to navigate without visibility and to get the position of each ship around, while agriculture benefits from increased efficiency through precision farming. Agriculture benefits significantly from PNT, farmers can determine the exact locations to plant seeds, apply fertilizers, or irrigate crops. This level of accuracy reduces waste, optimizes resource use, and boosts crop yields, leading to greater efficiency. Furthermore, GNSS plays a crucial role in synchronizing critical IT systems, ensuring that financial networks, telecommunications, and energy grids operate smoothly. In each of these sectors, precision is not just a convenience but a necessity for maximizing efficiency, safety, and overall performance.

The importance of securing PNT for sovereignty

Navigation sovereignty is not merely a technical issue; it is a geopolitical one. Sovereignty over navigation systems means more than maintaining independent technological capabilities, it ensures that a nation remains shielded from external manipulation and disruption, which can have severe consequences for both military and civilian activities.

For countries that rely on foreign GNSS systems, the challenge of navigation sovereignty becomes more pronounced. Most nations rely on GPS or other global systems operated by foreign powers. In times of geopolitical tension, this dependence can be weaponized, for example, in the case of sanctions or conflict, access to foreign GNSS could be limited, paralyzing everything from transportation networks to financial markets, leaving it vulnerable to both economic and military pressure.

The vulnerabilities of GNSS are a growing concern across multiple sectors

As navigation systems become more interconnected and digitally integrated, cyberattacks have become one of the most significant threats. The vulnerabilities of GNSS are a growing concern across multiple sectors, each of which depends heavily on the reliability and security of these systems. These weaknesses include susceptibility to cyberattacks such as jamming, a technology used to interrupt or obstruct wireless signals and electronic communication, or spoofing, a practice in which communication is sent from an unknown source disguised as a source known to the receiver, all of which can have significant and far-reaching impacts.

In the defense sector

The susceptibility of these systems to jamming and spoofing poses a serious threat. For example, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, GNSS jamming and spoofing were actively used to disrupt Ukrainian military operations. Ukrainian drones faced interference in approximately 60% of sorties. This highlights the strategic importance of securing sovereignty over navigation systems to prevent adversarial disruptions​.

In the aviation sector

The aviation industry also faces significant risks due to GNSS vulnerabilities. The 2020 incident involving a cyberattack on Garmin, which led to a widespread GPS outage, underscores the critical need for secure and resilient navigation systems in aviation. This outage caused hundreds of flight delays and raised serious safety concerns, emphasizing the importance of maintaining control over navigation systems to ensure the reliability of global air traffic management​.


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In the maritime sector

In maritime navigation, the consequences of GNSS vulnerabilities can be equally severe. In 2018, shipping vessels in the Black Sea experienced GPS anomalies due to deliberate interference, leading to over 20 ships being misled about their actual locations by hundreds of miles. Although no collisions were directly reported as a result of this interference, the incident raised serious safety concerns. This posed risks for navigation, particularly in busy or narrow shipping lanes. Such disruptions pose not only economic and environmental risks but also threaten the security of international shipping lanes. Ensuring the sovereignty and security of maritime navigation systems is therefore crucial for maintaining global trade efficiency and safety​.

In the agriculture sector

The agricultural sector’s reliance on GNSS for precision farming makes it particularly vulnerable to disruptions. In 2018, around 50 Norwegian farms were impacted by GNSS jamming during NATO military exercises, which led to overlapping seed placements, irrigation issues, and delays in harvesting, potentially affecting up to 20 – 30% of the fields. These disruptions had direct economic consequences and increased waste, illustrating the critical need to protect navigation technologies to ensure agricultural productivity and food security.

Across these sectors, the vulnerabilities of GNSS highlight the urgent need for robust security measures and the development of alternative navigation solutions to mitigate the risks associated with these weaknesses. Ensuring the sovereignty and resilience of GNSS is not just a technical challenge but a strategic imperative for safeguarding national and global interests.

How can we secure PNT systems?

As global reliance on GNSS grows, so does the need for robust strategies to secure PNT data. This section explores various approaches to enhance PNT security, ensuring resilience across critical sectors.

Cybersecurity measures

The threat of cyberattacks has emerged as one of the most significant risks to PNT security notably due to the recent trend of digitalization. Governments must invest in advanced encryption technologies, continuous monitoring, and sophisticated cybersecurity protocols to guard against digital intrusions. For example, in the United States, the Department of Defense (DoD) is working on robust encryption and anti-spoofing measures, while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) focuses on developing resilient cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructures. In Europe, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is implementing advanced encryption and authentication mechanisms to protect PNT services from cyber threats​. The challenge is to develop and implement technologies that can effectively counter these threats while remaining adaptable to evolving tactics used by adversaries, because new vulnerabilities can emerge as technology evolves, necessitating ongoing research and adaptation.

New Space systems

Traditional GNSS satellites operate in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), but the development of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations presents a promising new layer of PNT resilience. Projects like FutureNAV from the European Space Agency (ESA) or Synchrocube from Syrlinks (Safran) are exploring LEO constellations that could provide more frequent and robust PNT signals. These systems often use new frequency bands, which not only improve resilience but also enhance the precision and penetration of positioning data. When integrated with existing GNSS infrastructure, LEO satellites could create a more comprehensive and reliable PNT framework​. Due to the high numbers of satellites, it reduces the impact of any single satellite being compromised or jammed, as the system can rely on others for accurate data. But also, the shorter signal paths, due to the higher proximity between the satellites and Earth, reduce the time available for an attacker to intercept, spoof, or jam signals. Finally, the use of higher signal frequencies makes LEO satellites more resilient to jamming attempts.

Terrestrial systems

Given the vulnerabilities inherent in satellite-based navigation, integrating terrestrial alternatives into national infrastructure is critical for maintaining PNT sovereignty. Systems such as dead reckoning, enhanced Long Range Navigation (eLORAN), and VOR/DME beacons provide reliable backup in the event of GNSS disruptions. These ground-based systems are less susceptible to jamming and spoofing mostly because they are local systems, offering stable and secure solutions for national coverage. By building redundancy with terrestrial systems, nations can significantly reduce their dependence on GNSS and enhance the resilience of their PNT capabilities​.

Let’s have an overview of the possible terrestrial solutions ranked by their level of maturity from higher to lower:

Accelerometers and gyroscopes systems

  • Inertial Navigation Systems (INS): Inertial Navigation Systems are currently one of the most reliable alternatives to GNSS, particularly in scenarios where signals are jammed or spoofed. INS uses accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure the velocity and orientation of a vehicle, allowing it to calculate its position based on its initial coordinates. The key strength of INS lies in its independence from external signals, making it immune to jamming and spoofing, this is the case for TopAxyz INS system from Thales or Geonyx system from Safran. However, the accuracy of INS can degrade over time due to the accumulation of small errors, and the high cost of advanced INS technology can be a significant barrier. While INS provides a critical layer of resilience, its ability to maintain operational continuity in high intensity jamming environments is still being tested.
  • Quantum Navigation Gyroscopes: A groundbreaking advancement in navigation technology is the development of Quantum Navigation Gyroscopes. These systems operate on similar principles to traditional INS but use deflected laser beams to manipulate atoms at near absolute zero temperatures, creating wave patterns that can be measured with extreme precision. Quantum navigation has the potential to offer accuracy far superior to current INS, potentially eliminating the need for GNSS. However, this technology is still in its early stages, and practical, widespread implementation may take another decade or more, but actors like Honeywell Aerospace with Vector Atomic are strongly working on it.

Radar Navigation

Radar navigation uses radar signals to determine the position and velocity of an object by measuring the time delay and frequency shift of reflected signals. It is, for example, the case of Thales SMART-S Mk2 a 3D medium-range surveillance radar designed for naval ships, capable of tracking air and surface targets and aiding in navigation. This method is particularly useful in environments where visual or GNSS signals are obstructed, such as dense forests, urban canyons, or fog, etc. Radar navigation systems are robust and reliable, but they require significant power and can be affected by electronic countermeasures, making them a complementary technology rather than a standalone solution.

Optical Navigation

Optical navigation systems, which rely on cameras to visually identify terrain and landmarks, have been used for many years, particularly in drone operations. These systems offer an alternative when GNSS is unavailable, but they have limitations. The effectiveness of optical navigation is highly dependent on environmental factors such as weather, terrain features, and lighting conditions. Moreover, current optical systems often require a human operator, making full automation a complex challenge that would likely require advances in artificial intelligence. Optical navigation is therefore more suited as a complementary solution to GNSS due to its dependency on environmental factors, its limited range and coverage (within view) and its automation challenges. Optics 1 Inc, a subsidiary of Safran Electronics & Defense, is the U.S global leader in electro-optic and navigation systems.

Anti-Jamming Technologies

To further protect navigation systems from jamming, anti-jamming technologies are being developed. These systems aim to minimize the impact of enemy jamming efforts by reducing the affected area and enhancing the performance of navigation systems operating in degraded modes. Such technologies are crucial for maintaining operational capabilities in contested environments. Thales’ CRPA (Controlled Radiation Pattern Antennas) TopShield is an example of these technologies contributing to mitigate GNSS jamming by optimizing the GNSS signal-to-noise ratio, assuring signal disponibility 100 times closer from the jamming source.

Anti-Spoofing Technologies

To safeguard navigation systems from spoofing, where false GNSS signals mislead receivers, anti-spoofing technologies are being developed to detect and mitigate these attacks. These systems work by verifying the authenticity of GNSS signals and identifying irregularities in signal patterns that may indicate spoofing. Anti-spoofing measures include signal authentication, encrypted GNSS signals, and cross-checking with other navigation methods like inertial navigation or radar. An example of such technology is TopStar M from Thales which uses encrypted data to ensure that the received signals are genuine and not spoofed.

Signal of Opportunity (SOOP)

SOOP navigation represents an innovative approach by leveraging existing signals from LEO satellites, communication towers, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or even broadcast signals. This method does not rely on GNSS but instead uses these “signals of opportunity” to triangulate position, this is the case for LocataNet a SOOP system that will have application in obstructed environments or for military applications in GNSS-denied zones. While promising, SOOP requires substantial investment in infrastructure and technology development. Furthermore, the high costs and complexity of establishing a national SOOP system mean that not all countries can afford to implement this technology, potentially leading to a loss of sovereignty. The success of SOOP depends heavily on building and maintaining infrastructure that can generate and transmit signals suitable for navigation but also in expanding their use of diverse signals from various sources to improve reliability and accuracy.

Magnetic and Stellar Recalibration

Magnetic recalibration involves using the Earth’s magnetic field as a navigational reference, a technique still in its nascent stages. This method has the potential to be universally applicable, offering a navigation solution that theoretically does not suffer from operational constraints. However, its development is far from complete, and practical applications are limited at this time. Stellar recalibration, on the other hand, uses the positions of stars as reference points, a technique with historical precedence in celestial navigation. Modern advancements aim to automate this process using sophisticated algorithms and sensors, such as those proposed in the Vision project, which seeks to create a discreet, non-emitting navigation system that is immune to jamming and spoofing. However, this technology is also in its early stages, and its application to airborne navigation remains limited.

In conclusion, while GNSS remains a cornerstone of modern navigation, the development of alternative systems is essential for ensuring operational resilience in the face of growing threats. However, no single technology can fully address the challenges posed by disruptions to GNSS, which is why a multi-layer approach is crucial. By combining multiple technologies, nations and industries can build a robust and secure navigation framework. As these technologies mature, they will play a critical role in complementing and, in some cases, potentially replacing traditional GNSS systems, paving the way for more secure and reliable navigation solutions in the future.

In an era marked by geopolitical tensions and rapid technological advancements, securing navigation sovereignty has become a strategic imperative for nations worldwide. Control over navigation systems such as GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and BeiDou is essential not only for military precision and national security but also for the stability of critical civilian functions including global trade, transportation, and emergency response. The increasing threats of cyberattacks and signal disruptions highlight the urgent need for nations to protect these vital assets, ensuring resilience against external manipulation.

As reliance on these systems grows, so does the necessity for a multi-layered approach that incorporates terrestrial or space solutions. The future of navigation security lies not in a single, monolithic system, but in a diverse ecosystem of complementary technologies.

In addition to diversifying navigation infrastructures, there is a critical need for evolutive systems, ones that can quickly adapt to the ever-changing landscape of threats. Cyberthreats, jamming, and spoofing technologies are evolving at a rapid pace, often outpacing static defenses. Therefore, future navigation systems must be designed with built-in flexibility, enabling them to respond swiftly to emerging threats with real-time updates, software patches, or even shifts in hardware capabilities.

By fostering an ecosystem of continually updated and adaptable technologies, nations can stay ahead of adversarial tactics, ensuring the resilience of navigation systems.

 At Alcimed, we keep exploring the question of sovereignty and the field of PNT systems to identify novel solutions and provide key strategic orientations to our clients. Should you want to exchange on these topics, don’t hesitate to contact our team!


About the author:

Alexandre, Consultant with Alcimed’s Aerospace Defense team in France

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