November 16, 2023
NAVSYS is proud to announce the award of a $250,000 Advanced Industries Early State Capital and Retention grant. Each year, the Colorado Department of Economic Development and International Trade partners with the Global Business Development division and advanced industry trade associations to administer this grant, aiming to support early-stage technologies. NAVSYS won this grant to support the development of a technology called PNTaaS or Position, Navigation, Timing as a Service. NAVSYS is developing Positioning, Navigation and Timing as a Service (PNTaaS) to enable existing broadband SATCOM satellites to be used as signals of opportunity (SoOP) to allow Assured PNT inertial and clock devices to maintain accurate positioning and timing in long-term GPS outages.
GPS (Global Positioning System) is a constellation of orbiting satellites that provides position, navigation, and timing data to users globally, 24/7/365. Since 2007, it has become the most widely used Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and it plays a critical role in our society today. Due to its prevalence, it is vulnerable to interruption, spoofing or jamming of signals resulting in diminishing communications links. This emerging challenge requires the development of alternative systems to provide position, navigation and timing data that does not rely on GPS. The current generation of alternative GNSS, categorically named Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing (A-PNT) solutions are limited in the frequencies they use, and they are not built on an open-source model, thereby limited in their deployment to precise equipment and software platforms. Additionally, these A-PNT systems can operate without GPS for short durations– which is an untenable limitation for many users and SATCOM providers.
NAVSYS is developing a “signal-sharing” open-source software as a service that can provide position, navigation, and timing data without necessitating the ownership of satellites. NAVSYS has developed PNTaaS Software Defined Radios (SDRs) that can receive and process the SATCOM SoOP signals using the PNTaaS published data. Subscribers can access the PNTaaS data from our service, leveraging an Internet of Things (IoT) protocol, to receive the precise timing and signal content needed to use these SATCOM signals for PNT. Through integration with SATCOM partners’ existing infrastructure, the PNTaaS solution can rapidly deliver global PNT coverage to subscribers. This innovative solution delivers a PNT capability that can operate in areas where GPS is denied and provide resilient precision positioning and timing solutions for military and commercial high reliability applications, including communications network, power distribution systems and financial services.
The future of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is alternative PNT, and NAVSYS is leading the way with PNTaaS. This Advanced Industries Early State Capital and Retention Grant will absolutely accelerate NAVSYS’ efforts and we are excited and grateful for the support.
