A medida que crece la preocupaci\u00f3n del Departamento de Defensa sobre la creciente capacidad de los adversarios para interrumpir las se\u00f1ales de los sat\u00e9lites GPS, los expertos advierten que no existe una alternativa \u00fanica para satisfacer las necesidades militares de capacidades de posicionamiento, navegaci\u00f3n y sincronizaci\u00f3n (PNT). Las se\u00f1ales de radiofrecuencia (RF) transmitidas desde los sat\u00e9lites del Sistema de Posicionamiento Global pueden ser utilizadas por una amplia variedad de plataformas para casi un n\u00famero infinito de misiones militares, que van desde ayudar a un soldado a conducir un veh\u00edculo todo terreno en un paisaje desconocido hasta dirigir un veh\u00edculo a\u00e9reo hacia su objetivo.<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 As Defense Department concern grows about the increasing ability of adversaries to disrupt GPS satellite signals, experts warn that there is no one-size-fits-all\u00a0alternative<\/a>\u00a0to meet military needs for\u00a0positioning, navigation and timing (PNT)<\/a>\u00a0capabilities.<\/p>\n Radio-frequency (RF) signals broadcasted from\u00a0Global Positioning System satellites<\/a>\u00a0can be used by a wide variety of platforms for almost an infinite number of military missions \u2014 ranging from helping a soldier navigate an all-terrain vehicle in an unfamiliar landscape to steering an airborne missile to its target.<\/p>\n The problem, as is being demonstrated every day in conflict zones such as\u00a0Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0and Gaza, is that GPS RF signals are weak and easily jammed \u2014 or, perhaps worse, spoofed to fool users into going to or looking at the wrong place. For example,\u00a0in March<\/a>\u00a0a plane carrying UK Defence Minister Grant Shapps from Poland back to Britain lost GPS near Kaliningrad due to suspected Russian jamming \u2014 something that his spokesperson said is not unusual over Russia\u2019s Baltic coast.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a real world problem,\u201d Michael Monteleone, the director of Army Futures Command\u2019s\u00a0new All-Domain Sensing Cross-Functional Team (CFT)<\/a>, said during a May 5 panel at the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation\u2019s annual GEOINT conference in Kissimmee, Fla.<\/p>\n Thus, the Pentagon, the\u00a0Space Force<\/a>,\u00a0the Army<\/a>\u00a0and the other military services have been scrambling to find alternatives for when (not if) GPS stops working on the battlefield.<\/p>\n The difficulty, however, is that each technique available now or in the foreseeable future for what is often called \u201calt-PNT\u201d comes with a need to make size, weight, power and cost trade-offs based on what type of platform is being used, as well as the nature duration of the mission, according to experts.<\/p>\n Lloyd Dabbs, director of public sector business development for SandboxAQ, explained during the GEOIN panel that the Pentagon will need a \u201cholistic strategy\u201d to develop methods for creating \u201ca good composite signal\u201d provided by combining different techniques.\u00a0\u201cNothing will ever take over for GPS,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no silver bullet,\u201d Nikki Markiel, senior GEOINT authority for geomatics at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), told Breaking Defense . \u201cEverybody would like to have one. And I think that is where a lot of the struggle comes, because GPS has been easy. It\u2019s ubiquitous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow you have to do some homework,\u201d she told Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n Finding Where You Are, Where You Are Going<\/strong><\/p>\n Markiel explained that there are six broad \u201cfamilies\u201d of methodologies for positioning and navigation based on the type of data used.\u00a0The good news is that means there are alternatives. The bad news is it means each can provide separate benefits and drawbacks.<\/p>\n<\/del>\u201cThe key point in my mindset is that at the end of the day, it\u2019s really about the data. Folks really want to chase down the path of technology but really it\u2019s what data is going to be available to enable that technology,\u201d Markiel added.<\/p>\n