GPS World, December 2017

DIRECTIONS 2018 GPS GALILEO GLONASS BEIDOU Resiliency Key to New GPS T he most discussed theme in the U S Air Force space community over the last year has been resiliency But what does that actually mean and how can the Air Force increase resiliency in space The GPS Directorate took these questions to heart and thought long and hard about resiliency in our Positioning Navigation and Timing PNT service I am pleased to report that we have made significant progress in the past year in our quest to bring a new generation of PNT technology to reality More importantly our investments in space ground and user equipment developments are bringing real tangible benefits towards providing a more resilient PNT service worldwide We stand on the cusp of delivering modernized civil and military GPS signals which provide critical pieces to the puzzle Farther into the future the Air Force is already exploring new emerging technologies and capabilities to even further advance the robustness of the GPS enterprise with the vision that GPS will always remain the Gold Standard for the worldwide PNT community Resiliency Begins with Signals Modernized GPS signals will be the first piece of the puzzle for an overall resilient PNT solution The community has long anticipated the beginning of the multi GNSS era The GPS Directorate has embraced this future with a new L1C signal designed cooperatively from the ground up to be interoperable with international satellite navigation systems The signal design will greatly improve GPS reception in cities and other challenging environments Another important GPS signal was introduced with our GPS IIF satellites The L5 signal is designed specifically to meet the demanding requirements for safety of life transportation and other high performance applications This signal is broadcast in a radiofrequency band reserved exclusively 10 GPS WORLD WWW GPSWORLD COM DECEMBER 2017 for aviation safety services to ensure it has optimal spectrum protection Together these two new additions greater improve PNT resilience for civil users around the globe Other measures already improve resiliency by leveraging existing signals For example the L2C signal when combined with L1 C A in a dual frequency receiver will enable ionospheric error correction and BY Col Steven Whitney DIRECTOR GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEMS D IRECTORATE Photo U S Air Force Joseph Juarez Sr