We Deserve Higher: GNSS for the twenty first Century 

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International Navigation Satellite tv for pc System (GNSS) expertise is crucial for contemporary society, because it performs an important function within the international economic system, important industries, and emergency response companies.  

Nevertheless, this expertise that’s in every part from smartphones, to vehicles, to airplanes, and extra was first invented greater than 50 years in the past and is well vulnerable to jamming and interference – making this 20th-century expertise out of date within the 21st century. 

Whereas this would possibly sound trivial, unreliable GNSS is a a lot larger difficulty than the map in your smartphone being off by a couple of ft or a ride-sharing app taking you to the unsuitable location. GNSS is crucial for our economic system, our safety, and public security.  

For instance, within the U.S., greater than 500,000 emergency 9-1-1 calls are made every day from cell phones. First responders depend upon correct location expertise when being despatched to emergencies; an inaccurate or compromised sign might be the distinction between life and loss of life.  

By OneNav, Inc.  05.28.2024

By MRPeasy  05.01.2024

Much more regarding is the truth that GNSS – a necessary device for the navy – is now getting used as a weapon in battle zones, as widespread sign jamming is happening in and round Ukraine and within the Center East. The implications of this go far past the battlefield, as assaults on civilian GNSS programs (e.g., business airplanes) are occurring at an alarming charge. 

Media studies that, from August 2023 to March 2024, roughly 46,000 flights skilled satellite tv for pc navigation points within the Baltic area – an space the place Russia has a protracted historical past of jamming GNSS alerts. 

Now shouldn’t be the time to be depending on outdated expertise, particularly when each navy and civilian GNSS infrastructure are being focused by unhealthy actors. 

The principle cause for our present state of affairs is our reliance on legacy programs which use an outdated set of GNSS alerts, generally known as L1.  

First invented in 1973, L1 band alerts are centered round 1575 MHz on the radio spectrum and are used for practically all location companies performance in our expertise gadgets. Whereas L1 performed a vital function within the mass adoption of GNSS all over the world and its potential to achieve billions of shoppers, advances in expertise have made L1 largely out of date. 

Most notably, the event of alerts within the L5 band is a significant step ahead for location companies expertise. These fashionable alerts are cleaner, larger high quality, and broadcast at larger energy whereas utilizing larger bandwidth. In addition they present coding acquire and error correction and provide better resistance to multipath interference. 

That is due, partially, to the L5 band being situated on the coronary heart of the Aeronautical Navigation Radio Providers (ARNS) band at 1192MHz, a protected portion of the radio spectrum, which is 400MHz decrease in frequency than L1 alerts, making L5 alerts resistant to interference from different communication bands. 

Moreover, L5 alerts profit from a pseudorandom noise (PRN) code size of 10,230 chips. L5 has a chipping charge of 10.23MHz (10x larger than the L1 chipping charge of 1.023 MHz) with a correlation peak overlaying 29.3 meters, in comparison with 293 meters for L1. Which means L5 alerts can transmit extra exact measurements and remove multipath distortions from any reflection that exceeds 29 meters – a game-changer for better sign accuracy. 

Nevertheless, regardless of these superior alerts being broadcast from satellites since 2014, the L5 band shouldn’t be totally utilized in right this moment’s expertise gadgets. 

At present, the vast majority of our gadgets use hybrid or dual-band alerts, which means a mixture of each L1 and L5. Whereas, in concept, upgrading from L1 to dual-band ought to enhance efficiency, the truth is that our gadgets nonetheless overwhelmingly depend on outdated L1 alerts, even in a hybrid system.   

It’s because dual-band alerts (even these described as L5 appropriate) should purchase the L1 band earlier than buying L5. Though our gadgets have the flexibility to make use of essentially the most fashionable GNSS expertise out there, they’ll solely achieve this by first buying 50-year-old L1 alerts and the vulnerabilities that include them. For instance, if an L1 sign have been misplaced or compromised in a hybrid system, a tool is unable to accumulate L5, rendering it successfully ineffective. 

This reliance on L1 has resulted in continued points with GNSS efficiency, reliability, and most significantly, security and safety. Nevertheless, advances in expertise can cut back our dependence on these outdated alerts.  

GNSS expertise developer oneNav has efficiently developed L5-direct™, a brand new GNSS product class able to immediately buying and monitoring L5-band alerts with out having to accumulate L1. 

L5-direct™ offers an entire answer, together with all firmware and an RF entrance finish reference design from antenna to A/D converter, a digital IP core, and a reference Place Engine that may run on an embedded or a separate MCU. The IP core may also be built-in into a bigger ASIC, similar to a modem or an SOC, or carried out as a discrete silicon answer if desired. 

The IP core is carried out to be each process-independent and scalable and might be personalized to offer an optimum steadiness of measurement, energy and GNSS efficiency that’s particular to an utility. The core has constructed time scalability to assist completely different reminiscence sizes and clock speeds to assist completely different efficiency necessities. 

The advantages of direct acquisition of L5 alerts are huge, as these alerts provide better accuracy and higher efficiency in difficult environments similar to deep city areas, tree-shaded areas, and extra – areas the place L1 alerts traditionally have operated poorly.  

Moreover, transitioning away from an L1-dependent hybrid to L5-direct™ can cut back the quantity of house, power consumption, and value required by power-constrained wearables (for instance, smartphones, smartwatches, and so on.). 

Nevertheless, the largest benefits of L5 alerts are their potential to offer better accuracy, in addition to being 6-7x more durable to jam and intervene with when in comparison with the L1 band. That is partially as a consequence of these fashionable alerts having a considerably smaller interference radius when encountering future L1/L2/L5 jamming transmissions – primarily making a a lot smaller goal for unhealthy actors to aim to intervene with.  

With assaults on L1 and hybrid GNSS programs occurring all over the world with better frequency, the resilience offered by L5-direct™ is crucial.  

L5-direct™ offers the chance to raised shield our economic system, our important industries, our navy, and our E9-1-1 companies from unhealthy actors seeking to exploit outdated L1 expertise whereas offering way more correct location companies within the course of. 

oneNav’s silicon-proven L5-direct™ expertise is at the moment out there for analysis and integration by chip developer companions and is appropriate with a variety of end-use gadgets together with IoT trackers, smartwatches and wearables, smartphones, cars, and drones. 

If you want to study extra concerning the subsequent era of location companies, please go to www.onenav.ai.