Why do Americans need backup for GPS?

Why do Americans need backup for GPS?

If you think GPS is just to help you navigate this new restaurant or find the fastest way around town, you would be wrong. GPS, satellite signals are fundamental to every network in the United States - the Internet, power grid, financial commerce, telecommunications and, yes, transportation. But there is no backup in this system, which means that a major interruption, fraud or hack can cause the entire country to its knees.

A new system called Elorn, which was based on World War II-based radio technology, can complement GPS and give it the flexibility it needs. Other countries have similar backups, including China and Russia. But despite the administration until it was announced in 2008 that the state would create such a system, it still had to do so.

"This is a national infrastructure problem," says Diana Goward, president of the Residential Navigation and Timing Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports policies and systems to make GPS more flexible. "

For GPS and its dependency systems, it's all about timing. Literally. The 24 operational satellites that rotate around the earth carry a maximum of four atomic clocks on the ship, which hold at the same time nanoseconds, all of which are interconnected and coordinated in a timely manner. There are. When satellites broadcast signals, they are broadcasting their time and location to those on Earth, such as your smartphone, located along these key networks. Recipients use these gestures to determine the position of the difference in arrival time
These indicators indicate why you received an alert when your elevator driver was approaching. Nodes on the Internet use signals to keep track of packets of information running across the entire network. They need to know what time it is so they can resubmit packets of information that originate in Ohio that carry on your laptop in Boston. On an electric grid, phase measurement units use GPS signals to ensure that electrical sine waves are found where two grids are combined. Direction can generate a lot of heat and cause energy loss.

Telecommunication networks use GPS signals to synchronize their cellphone towers to prevent your call to the grandmother's house on this train ride. Thanks to GPS, your credit card purchases, ATM returns and financial market transactions all have the same timeline tickets.

You can see where we're going from here. A snapshot in GPS can cause some serious problems. And it's not too difficult to do. GPS satellites transmit weak, high-frequency signals that travel 12,645 miles (20,350 km) over space and the atmosphere to the earth. Space weather can overtake them by accident. People can mess them up with purpose. Depending on the cost and quality of products sold online, GPS signals can illegally jam anywhere between 100 feet (30 meters) and 30 miles (48 kilometers).

"As long as it's not a problem, it's not a problem," says Gord.

And there are problems too
In April 2016's 2016uters In, Reuters reported that dozens of South Korean fish vessels had to return to port because their GPS devices were jammed - apparently by North Korea.

On January 12, 2016, two US Navy boats sailed 50 miles (80 km) in Iranian territorial waters and were captured by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Car Navy. Goward wrote an editorial for the Christian Science Monitor, stating that Iran had forged GPS devices of boats with fake signals and deliberately threw the ship.

Last January 2016, the US Air Force fired a GPS satellite, as it normally does, and in the process introduced a 13.7 microsecond error to rotate half of the GPS satellite. This error caused thousands of disruptions around the world for the next 12 hours, including system errors in telecommunications networks, automated dependency surveillance broadcast (ADS-B), aircraft tracking security systems and first responders in North America. Networks.

"Fortunately, as far as we can tell, no one died and unfortunately, there were no headlines," says Gord. So matters continue as they were. " "But it is clear that all these systems are interconnected, and these errors and failures occur even when there is a really, really small contradiction in GPS.

Backup

The eLoran system provides a backup plan. This system, formerly known as LORAN - which was intended for "long-range add-on navigation" - was actually a secret system deployed by the United States throughout the world during World War II. After the war, the US Coast Guard retained several transmitter sites overseas in support of the Department of Defense, and over 25 networks in the United States. Each transmitter used atomic clocks coordinates with the Universal Observatory's coordinated Universal Time and broadcasts precise timing indicators.

But then the more accurate GPS came along and the US put the lawn aside. Commercial establishments and the British maritime navigation authorities raised, perfected and demonstrated the Lorraine, or Eleuron, developed by the US Coast Guard.

Gourd says the United States plans to reuse the same pastoral infrastructure as the previous Lauren system, which can broadcast low-frequency, high-power time signals that are GPS satellites. 1.3 million times stronger than those coming from the planet.

The combination of low frequency radio waves transmitted to a single high power makes them virtually impossible to jam. They can enter buildings, go underground and even underwater - which can help navigate these places. Research has shown that when using eLoran with GPS, the combination is far more accurate than alone, Goward says.

This past July, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that states, "Subject to the allocation, the Secretary shall establish a reliable land-based enhanced Loren, or Elurin, positioning, navigation, and And the time system. "That same month, the House also approved the National Defense Permit Act for fiscal year 2018, which promoted the completion of GPS and backup-backed proofs. Million million allocated to create the conceptual system.

Goward believes the money could go toward the final phase of the system, which includes expanding four of the remaining eight towers in the middle of the continental United States.

"You can quickly set a time signal to protect critical infrastructure," he said. "That can happen in less than a year. $ 10 million would be a good start to this endeavor."

The rest of it can cost from $ 400 million to $ 500 million. But Gordon doesn't think the government should do this. Its foundation supports private public partnerships between government and business. The idea is that a company will develop the rest of the infrastructure, sell subscriptions to the government, and sell high-resolution services to private companies - which will also provide free basic services to the public.

At this point, it is unclear how the US government will proceed. But technology is advancing without government, and as the world is relying on networks and automation, something has to give.

"We're relying on the Homeland Security Department, a point-of-failure for critical infrastructure," said Gourd. "This means that when it fails, it has the potential to cause even greater failures.