Why GPS is critical to your smartphone — and desperately needs an overhaul - Digital Trends

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Most modern technology, including smartphones, runs connected GPS. But the strategy mightiness beryllium much susceptible to failures than you think. The U.S. lacks backup geolocation technology, meaning outages oregon interference could beryllium catastrophic. Russia has threatened to destruct GPS satellites, and precocious faulty GPS signals temporarily closed a Dallas airport.

Thankfully, companies are stepping successful to assistance defender GPS. NextNav precocious signed a woody to supply caller exertion called TerraPoiNT that serves arsenic a backup for GPS, utilizing existing LTE and 5G networks. “TerraPoiNT’s awesome is implicit 100,000 times stronger than GPS, and its awesome encryption makes it much resistant to jamming and spoofing,” Ganesh Pattabiraman, NextNav’s CEO, told Digital Trends successful an interview. It’s an intriguing stat — and a glimpse of however we tin (and should) safeguard GPS.

Why GPS is truthful important, and truthful fragile

GPS representation information from an Apple Watch Ultra and the Apple Watch Series 8 shown connected an iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone SE 2022.

GPS provides positioning, navigation, timing services arsenic good arsenic determination services for mobile phones. Its wide availability has made it a planetary inferior integral to industries and infrastructure, ranging from the electrical grid to 911 exigency services to fiscal transactions. But, Pattabiraman said, the strategy is “incredibly vulnerable” to interference — including jamming and spoofing.

Sam Brown, a nonrecreational vigor technologist who runs a vigor frequence blog astatine OneSDR, said successful an interrogation that GPS connection receivers are often disrupted utilizing easy-to-obtain and inexpensive jammers.

“A jammer volition emit a awesome that interferes with awesome reception, and arsenic a result, the GPS receiver volition not beryllium capable to supply determination information,” helium added.

In 1 caller example, problems with GPS signals led to flights being grounded astatine Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The occupation was traced to a mysterious root of interference and closed the airdrome for 2 days.

Photo of Newark airdrome aboriginal successful the morning.

Potential overseas interference is different issue. Russia has bragged that it tin instrumentality retired the satellites that supply our GPS.

“An incidental similar a large star flare oregon harm to commercialized satellites could perchance sound retired galore indispensable services that we trust connected each azygous day,” Pattabiraman said. “That’s wherefore the U.S. national authorities has recognized the value of implementing PNT alternate technologies to guarantee GPS resilience, including done an enforcement bid to “engage the nationalist and backstage sectors to place and beforehand the liable usage of PNT services.”

Alex Damato, acting enforcement manager of the GPS Innovation Alliance, an manufacture group, said successful an interrogation that his enactment maintains a technology-neutral stance erstwhile it comes to backup GPS solutions.

However, helium said, GPSIA agrees that “the champion strategy for achieving resilient PNT work is to prosecute aggregate technologies to beforehand diverseness successful the PNT functions.” It is besides indispensable that backup solutions are capable to connection equivalent capabilities and a level of show connected par with GPS technologies and are driven by the PNT requirements of each manufacture assemblage alternatively than authorities mandates.

A occupation decades successful the making

Part of the problems with GPS stems from its plan arsenic a relic of the Cold War. GPS was designed for subject usage successful struggle areas wherever civilian networks were not disposable — shooting rockets a 1000 miles done the precocious ambiance oregon helping carriers afloat of airplanes transverse the ocean, Tim Sylvester, laminitis and CEO of Integrated Roadways, said successful an interview. It was ne'er intended to assistance navigate pedestrians and vehicles successful peaceful municipality areas.

“This mismatch successful plan versus usage means that GPS has respective important flaws, specified arsenic debased accuracy and precocious latency,” Sylvester said. These challenges are a merchandise of the GPS signals coming from satellites thousands of miles away, and the drawbacks are a effect of physics that cannot beryllium fixed.”

GPS has its drawbacks erstwhile it comes to a caller procreation of self-driving cars. The debased accuracy of GPS means that you can’t efficaciously usage it to cognize what lane idiosyncratic is in, which is simply a large occupation erstwhile driving, and precocious latency means that your presumption accusation gets worse erstwhile you’re moving quickly, which is besides a large occupation erstwhile driving, Sylvester said. Because GPS is coming from thousands of miles away, successful municipality areas with tons of gangly buildings, the accuracy is adjacent worse due to the fact that the gangly buildings artifact satellites that aren’t successful the nonstop close presumption to transmit past the buildings.

Next-generation Apple CarPlay interface.

“These limitations are wholly astatine likelihood with utilizing GPS for connected and autonomous vehicles, which requires precocious accuracy, debased latency, and reliable cognition successful dense municipality areas, seeing arsenic however dense municipality areas are wherever each the postulation is,” Sylvester said. “Like newspapers were replaced with online news, GPS was a large stepping stone, but it’s clip to determination past it. In fact, astir apps already disregard GPS and softly substitute it for alternatives similar Bluetooth, but this is usually hidden from the idiosyncratic due to the fact that what the idiosyncratic cares astir is simply a bully service, not however they get it.”

The coming question of autonomous vehicles whitethorn necessitate a amended determination system. Sylvester said the astir promising alternate to GPS for connected and autonomous vehicles is called APNT. PNT stands for “position, navigation, telemetry.” Depending connected who you ask, the “A” whitethorn basal for assisted, augmented, assured, alternative, oregon different near-synonyms terms.

APNT is built into the section infrastructure, including compartment antennas, Bluetooth beacons, Wi-Fi, oregon different “alternative” means to position, navigate, and person conveyance telemetry.

“These methods person been cobbled unneurotic implicit the past 15 years utilizing a operation of smartphone components and readily disposable communications methods, and portion they’re large for tourists roaming Market Street oregon Times Square trying to way down a sandwich that’s little than $30, their advertisement hoc quality means they can’t beryllium relied connected for autonomy,” Sylvester said.

Integrated Roadways has been processing Smart Pavement, which builds the APNT capabilities straight into the road, utilizing high-accuracy in-road sensors, and supported by an ultra-low-latency borderline network, “so that immoderate roadworthy upgraded with Smart Pavement has each the APNT capabilities needed for connected and autonomous vehicles built into the roadway and designed from the crushed up arsenic a reliable, safe, secure, industrial-quality web providing the features required by next-generation mobility demands, ” Sylvester said

Where bash we spell aft GPS?

Person holding iPhone 14 searching for Emergency SOS satellite.

NextNav’s strategy isn’t the lone enactment arsenic a GPS backup. Max Perez, the vice president of probe and information Solutions astatine ColdQuanta, said successful an interrogation that Quantum Positioning Systems (QPS) person the imaginable to service arsenic an alternate to GPS. Quantum properties powerfulness the positioning system, and dissimilar GPS, QPS does not necessitate ongoing calibration with extracurricular signals to run.

“A QPS lone needs to cognize its starting constituent to relation and is capable to cipher however accelerated it has traveled, for however long, and successful what absorption to find its existent position,” Perez said. “Quantum Positioning Systems (QPS) would augment GPS passim the satellite arsenic it offers importantly improved navigation security. Use cases for QPS see navigation for aircraft, submarines, autonomous cars, and more. Benefits of QPS implicit GPS see accuracy, nary reliance connected satellite, indoor usage, and little vulnerability to hacking.”

Damato said the GPS manufacture is innovating rapidly, processing solutions that marque GPS much precise and resilient. These solutions see GPS receivers, the satellites that present these GPS signals, and the crushed power conception that tracks and monitors GPS performance.

“A large modernization of the GPS constellation is good underway, which, erstwhile completed, volition present dozens of caller satellites providing importantly greater accuracy and accrued anti-jamming capabilities,” helium added.