The demand for accurate, reliable and secure Position, Navigation and Time (PNT) solution, from a number of different applications include the National Critical Infrastructures (CNI), is increasing. GNSS is a key technology for high-performance PNT, due to its high levels of accuracy, global coverage and its lack of service cost. On the other hand, the spoofing of GNSS is an evolving threat, nowadays can be performed virtually by anyone exploiting Software-Defined Radio (SDR).
PNT assurance against malicious threats like spoofing relies on four main enablers: Authenticity of the information used for computing the position (e.g. clock and ephemeris data of GNSS satellites), authenticity of the ranging signals, assurance of the User Equipment (UE) time offset to a reference system time and integrity.
The objective of this activity is to design and develop a Proof-of-Concept demonstrator of a PNT assurance system to protect against malicious threat, using the proposed Next Generation Network Assisted PNT Assurance (NG-NAPA) concept. The activity aims to provide PNT assurance via reference-assisted GNSS and Signals Of Opportunity (SOOP) and / or SOOP-only PNT.
The reference network capabilities of the system will be enhanced by IRIDIUM, LTE/5G and GNSS encrypted signals, as potential SOOP, to assist in PNT assurance. These SOOP would then complement or possibly replace GNSS positioning in order to provide assurances to PNT users, especially when GNSS open services are disturbed. The proposed system concept is flexible for deployment at user terminals and suitable for both static and dynamic Use Cases.