The use of Alternate PNT (APNT) is becoming increasingly important to either supplement or replace mission critical applications that have been relying on traditional sources of PNT, particularly time recovered from GPS L1 C/A. In the last few years, the incredibly rapid progress in the deployment of pLEO (proliferated Low-Earth Orbit) constellations has made available a whole space-based infrastructure. That infrastructure, although designed primarily to implement low-latency, high-bandwidth data transport networks, can also be used to provide PNT services to users, together with the data delivery that is the primary mission of the constellation. It is of concern to the PNT community that this use of a commercial, data-focused infrastructure for PNT may create new vulnerabilities in what is perceived to be the robust solution of PNT’s dependence from GPS.
The APNT track is interested in papers that discuss the resilience of space-based alternative PNT systems, and their availability to the user, both independently from GPS and as a complement to it. Papers expanding the uses of pLEO for terrestrial time transfer systems, supplementary use of autonomous atomic clocks, and space-based global PNT references are also welcome.
We invite abstracts for presentations on the following topics:
- Timing distribution networks, systems and applications including space, ground and aerial networks
- Methods of ensuring traceable time transfer across multiple APNT systems
- Novel implementations of clock sync and time transfer in GNSS denied and non-traditional environments
- Resilience of data network used to disseminate PNT signals
- Space-based generation of global PNT references