One of the most ubiquitous technologies, the global position
system (GPS), that emerged last century threatens a military and civilian
operations due to a fatal vulnerability, that is only now getting attention.
A space-based satellite navigation system, GPS provides
location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near
the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS
satellites. It provides critical capabilities to military, civil and commercial
users around the world.
Developed back in 1973 to overcome the limitations of
previous navigation systems, GPS became fully operational in 1994.
Significantly for Australia, it is maintained by the United States government
and is freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver. But reliance on GPS is
subject to major vulnerabilities recent official studies have shown.
Issued in 2011, the Royal Academy of Engineering report
found jamming of GPS based vehicle tracking devices was easy and cheap. They
were often deployed hide a car driver’s movements or avoiding road user
charging.
Moreover rebroadcasting (‘meaconing’) a GPS signal
maliciously, accidentally or to improve reception could cause misreporting of a
position. This effectively allowed for spoofing GPS to create a controllable
misreporting of position, for example to deceive tracking devices.
In 2009, the UK Ministry of Defence conducted trials of GPS
jamming against the THV Galatea, a buoy tender, in an area of sea near South
Shields in the north of England. The jamming caused the ship’s systems, which
were reliant on GPS, to malfunction alarmingly. During the trial the ship
gradually lost position, and the autopilot told the ship to move off course,
moreover, there was no indication on the ship that there had been a navigation
failure.
GPS – A global single
point of failure
This single point of failure can affect both navigational
and communications instruments, David Last a consultant on the project told
ZDNet UK.
Instruments affected aboard the Galatea included the main
electronic chart display. This was linked to the autopilot; the ship’s
automatic identification system; voice and data communications; and the
helicopter-pad stabilisation system.
The ship’s position silently departed from its true
position, and the ship’s autopilot silently began to turn the vessel according
to Last. The Galatea was only able to get an accurate position from a
ground-based transmitter located some 130 Km away in Anthon, using terrestrial
technology known as LOng RAnge Navigation (LORAN) which was not susceptible to
cheap GPS jamming devices.
Critical national infrastructure such as stock exchanges
could be adversely affected by GPS jamming and spoofing because their
datacentres rely on GPS signals to timestamp transactions. Any confusion caused
by disruption to such timestamps could provoke a bear run of traders
withdrawing from the market effecting a king hit on the national economy.
The prevalence of cheap jamming devices will increase
because the signal received at ground level from the GPS satellites is weak.
Jamming over a small area is easily achieved.
It took the Federal Aviation Authority over three months to
locate jammers upsetting landing planes were in fast moving trucks on the
nearby freeway. Dedicated kits known as Radionavigation-Satellite Service
(RNSS) jammers are available for purchase over the internet even though they
have been banned in Australia since 2004 for just over $AUD30.
In March last year, Professor Andrew Dempster, of the
University of NSW School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems, issued a
warning on GPS jamming. Some of this was unintended.
His research team detected interference in GPS signals
caused by a television tower in Sydney’s northern suburbs. The UNSW team are
working with the University of Adelaide and private company GPSat Systems on an
Australian Research Council-funded project to develop jammer-detection
technology.
“Our research will produce a system that can accurately
geolocate the position of a jamming signal, and hopefully track a moving
vehicle carrying a jammer,” Professor Dempster said.
In Australia, Defence accepts vulnerabilities of GPS,
informing ADM, it is “focused on ensuring that the Australian Defence Force is
able to conduct operations mindful of GPS degradation or denial”.
But Defence declined to elaborate on any specific strategies
or capabilities it was pursuing as these were classified.
Enter Locata
A local company known as Locata is likely to be part of its
solution.
David Small and Nunzio Gambale founded Locata in 1997 as a
Canberra-based start-up. As of August
2011, the company has been granted 81 patents based on its revolutionary local
positioning technology called LocataNet. This offers a ground-based local
positioning system that provides mapping information similar to GPS, but
without the satellites, atomic clocks or ground support structure required by
traditional GPS systems.
To determine positioning in a LocataNet, LocataLite radio
transceivers are deployed across a defined area. These devices function like a
grounded version of a GPS satellite constellation, sending out radiolocation
signals that Locata receivers use to get a location fix.
A Locata receiver outputs a position solution stream,
offering latitude, longitude and altitude, an National Marine Electronics
Association (NMEA) stream for marine devices in the same way as a traditional
GPS receiver.
LocataLites provide all of the Position, Navigation and Time
(PNT) functions provided by a GPS satellite constellation, but in a local area,
allowing operators to locate, automate and direct objects with centimeter-level
accuracy. Locata’s duplication of PNT is made possible by the company’s
patented nanosecond-accurate “TimeLoc” synchronisation technology.
In contrast to a GPS signal, attempts to jam a LocataNet are
unlikely because they would need so much power to run the jamming that its
source could be easily located and taken out based on their signal source.
Locata already holds a multi-year sole-source contract with
the US Air Force 746th Test Squadron (746 TS) to deploy a LocataNet and provide
positioning information when GPS is jammed across a 6,500 square kilometre area
of its White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Earlier this year, Locata’s potential was demonstrated in a
civilian maritime scenario when it went head to head to with GPS in a NSW
Government’s Sydney Satellites project at Farm Cove. Three runs of maritime
vessels in the area generated some 12 minutes of data. These support that
Locata offered a high precision alternative to GPS with horizontal positioning
within a jaw-dropping 4.4 cm range.
Locata’s technology is already established in mining
scenarios where satellites cannot reach at all.
In partnership with Leica Geosystems, Newmont’s Boddington
Gold Mine (BGM) in Western Australia use Locata’s technology for locating its
mining machines. As pits get deeper and traditional satellite-based GPS
coverage becomes unreliable near the mine’s steep walls, LocataNet has become
essential.
It is likely to feature in Australian Defence’s alternatives
to GPS where navigation may be less trustworthy and operational positioning is
vital.
