USDOT Makes Positioning, Navigation, Timing Awards

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently awarded more than $7.2 million in contracts to nine complementary Positioning, Navigation, and Timing or PNT technology vendors to help support critical Global Positioning System infrastructure used by all modes of transportation, including aviation, maritime, and rail.

[Above image by USDOT]

Awarded through the Volpe Center – in response to the “rapid phase” of the USDOT Complementary PNT Action Plan – those awards provide funding for instrumentation, testing, and evaluation of complementary PNT technologies at field test ranges in conjunction with critical infrastructure owners and operators, with the goal of improving overall PNT resiliency.

The agency noted in a statement that this fiscal effort comes at a time when occurrences of jamming and spoofing of Global Navigation Satellite Services – especially GPS – is prevalent in war zones and other conflict areas. That causes disruption, denial, and manipulation of PNT services, thereby increasing concerns for safety across all modes of transportation.

In addition to transportation applications, USDOT said the use of GPS is foundational through many sectors of the economy such as surveying, the financial sector, machine control, precision agriculture, science missions, and space applications.

However, because GPS relies on signals broadcast from satellites in medium Earth orbit, the signal strength at the receiver is low and thus vulnerable to intentional and unintentional disruptions, the agency pointed out.

The USDOT awards should also enable the department to conduct real-world field tests of commercial PNT technologies to facilitate adoption into systems that depend on secure and reliable PNT services, the agency added.

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