UrsaNav Selects ADVA to trial eLoran as vital GNSS backup

UrsaNav and ADVA have conducted an enhanced long-range navigation (eLoran) field trial using UrsaNav’s eLoran receiver and ADVA’s Oscilloquartz grandmaster clock technology.

The successful demo shows that eLoran offers a robust and reliable backup for GPS and other GNSS and could be used to provide an assured position, navigation, and timing (PNT) service.

The trial follows US federal executive order 13905 aimed at strengthening national resilience through PNT services, including protecting critical infrastructure such as electrical power grid and communication networks from rising cyber threats.

By harnessing ADVA’s flexible OSA 5420 Series, designed with assured PNT (aPNT) technology, UrsaNav has shown that eLoran can provide a new layer of protection and significantly boost timing resilience and security.

“The success of this field trial demonstrates how eLoran, as part of ADVA’s assured PNT solution, can serve as a crucial backup for GPS. We have shown how our technology enables ADVA’s grandmaster clock to receive UTC timing from the eLoran system for a period of several days with the same accuracy and stability as GPS. Of course, this capability is extensible to other GNSS as well. eLoran is far less vulnerable to unintentional jamming and spoofing disruptions or intentional attacks, thereby delivering nanosecond precision with even more resilience,” said Charles Schue, CEO, UrsaNav. “By partnering with ADVA, we’ve been able to show that our eLoran receiver interoperates with the best network timing toolkit available. The OSA 5420 Series is a great product – highly efficient and easy to operate. Together with ADVA, we’re paving the way for tomorrow’s more robust assured PNT synchronization architecture.”

Across the globe, essential services and entire industries are increasingly reliant on GNSS for PNT information. But these satellite systems are inherently susceptible to interference, which could have disastrous consequences.

A major disruption may result in billions of dollars of economic damage as well as a serious risk of loss of life. eLoran is one of the key technologies that could provide protection, with governments including the US exploring its potential as an alternative PNT source.

UrsaNav’s latest trial harnessed the OSA 5420 Series grandmaster clock with inbuilt GNSS receiver. Timing stability from GPS was measured for several days. This was then replaced with eLoran for the same period with no loss of stability.

What’s more, the test was conducted indoors where GNSS signals are not usually available, potentially extending the availability of precise UTC timing to many more environments.

“Commercially available GNSS jammers and spoofers are easy and cheap for attackers to construct. That’s part of the reason why we’re seeing a growing number of incidents across the world of blocked or misleading signals. If power utilities, enterprises, service providers and governments continue to rely on GNSS alone, it’s only a matter of time before the consequences become very serious. That’s why we’re committed to tackling GNSS vulnerabilities with advanced technologies like our ePRTC offering, cesium atomic clocks and our optical timing channel solution,” commented Nir Laufer, VP, product line management, Oscilloquartz, ADVA. “Now that UrsaNav has demonstrated the power of our OSA 5420 Series to utilize eLoran in the event of outages, we have another very important tool to ensure the quality and availability of time-sensitive services.”