In today’s world, precision timing is everything

Since COVID-19 restrictions have eliminated most international travel, readers probably didn’t pay much attention to reports last week that the rollout of 5G telecommunications systems in the United States upset airlines worried about interference with their planes’ altimeters.

Only gluttons for punishment or connoisseurs of the obscure noticed the U.S. Department of Defense announcement also last week that it was launching an optical clock network that promises significant improvement on the timing and accuracy of existing navigation devices. Both highlight the centrality of precision, timing and navigation (PNT) systems to just about every facet of life, from figuring out a lunch destination to bank transfers; as important but hopefully not as central to your daily life are their role in military systems. Missile targeting, for example, is completely reliant on them.

PNT is one of the 14 categories of emerging technologies identified by the U.S. government as strategic and therefore demanding special attention and control. The overriding factor in that categorization is use by the military: You can’t target anything or coordinate with anyone without it. To my mind, however, the real significance of PNT reflects its penetration of the digital economy; nothing is possible without it. A U.S. government report concluded that vulnerabilities in PNT systems pose “a near-existential threat.” This makes it critical to the new national security economy.

An integral part of PNT is the Global Positioning System (GPS). GPS consists of 31 satellites that send signals (from at least four) to a receiver — your phone or car navigation system — that calculates location by measuring slight differences in the signals’ time of arrival. The system identifies location and time, and while we focus on the former, the latter may be even more important: Every time stamp is a product of GPS or an equivalent.

GPS reaches about 4 billion people around the world, and it was estimated in 2019 that GPS had an economic impact of $1 billion a day in the U.S. alone. Another study concluded that it’s almost impossible to gauge the overall value of GPS, as it affects the worth of just about everything. The instantaneous communications that accompany 5G, autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things and every so-called smart device all rely on GPS, meaning that the unknowable number will get bigger still.

Developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, GPS was developed for precision targeting and the U.S. military remains its priority user. The system is run by the military and the U.S. government retains the ability to limit or deny other users access to the system, as it did during a 1999 military crisis between India and Pakistan. It was made available to civilian users after the KAL 007 incident in which a Korean Airlines flight strayed from its flight path and was shot down by a Soviet fighter jet.

U.S. control prompted other governments to develop their own networks: China has Beidou, the European Union developed Galileo, Russia has GLONASS, India has NavIC and Japan created QZSS, which is for use in Asia and the Pacific. The four satellites in the QZSS — sometimes called Michibiki — are designed to supplement GPS and provide additional coverage for Japan. But, system designers emphasize it is intended for use in social services, agriculture, environmental monitoring and disaster risk management to “promote prosperity across the region.”

China’s system is considered the primary challenger to U.S. supremacy in this arena, rendering this competition “strategic.” Beidou’s final satellite went up in 2020, giving it 35 satellites, four more than GPS. (A report from Japan’s National Institute of Defense Studies identifies 49 Chinese PNT satellites.) Beidou is also a two-way communications system, allowing receivers to send messages (or be traced); the others are primarily beacons.

Beidou is in use in more than 120 nations and in the capital cities of 165 countries and provides more coverage. China estimated that the value of Beidou-related industries will exceed 1 trillion Chinese yuan ($157.1 billion) by 2025. It’s an important statement of Chinese scientific and technological capability and another way in which China is insinuating itself into daily life around the world.

Not ready to cede its place in this competition and cognizant of the need to have their own capability, European policymakers made research on PNT a core component of the EU’s Horizon strategic plan 2021-2024, which identifies priorities for research and innovation.

Most immediately, policymakers and scientists are focused on the threat of jamming or spoofing — sending fake signals — to destabilize systems that depend on accurate GPS. It explains the attention given to anti-satellite weapons: A shared time stamp to the nanosecond is critical to effective military operations. Take out satellites and the U.S. and its allies are blind and unable to coordinate.

That’s why the atomic clock is so important. It is a backup timing system for satellite signals. DARPA, the Pentagon agency that promotes and pursues high-tech projects, last week unveiled its Robust Optical Clock Network, which uses a chip-sized optical atomic clock that will be 100 times more precise than current systems and able to operate for 30 days in the absence of GPS. Atomic clocks exist, but they’re too big and they lose accuracy as they get smaller. The military is pursuing other options too: additional channels in the GPS network that are more highly encrypted and harder to hack, as well as other ground-based systems.

Worries about interference prompted the cancellation of flights at U.S. airports last week. Rollout of a new 5G system that used parts of the C-band radio spectrum also used by altimeters in certain aircraft sparked fears that pilots landing at some airports couldn’t rely on their instruments and would have to fly visually, which could be dangerous in bad weather. ANA and JAL were among the airlines that canceled flights, but they resumed after an announcement that the telecommunications companies would delay introduction of the system near those airports.

Interference is easier than you’d think. Satellite signals travel a long way and by the time they reach most receivers they’re weak and easy to override. Tall buildings block signals, although this is a line of sight problem; just move to get better reception. One study in 2016 discovered that a simple cigarette-lighter powered jammer in a car had enough power to block signals within a half kilometer radius and could, when going by an airport, disrupt the equipment of a passing plane.

There is evidence of Russian attempts to jam or spoof GPS signals in northern Europe, Ukraine and the Middle East; most of those cases involved military assets so they wouldn’t be detected as they were moved. North Korea has done the same in South Korea. Hijackers spoof the signals in trucks to redirect their cargoes and then to bypass GPS-enabled locks. Some governments spook the signals of their VIPs so they can travel without being tracked.

Don’t panic. Almost all mission critical GPS devices have backup. Military and private-sector companies are working on backups to overcome some of the flaws and limitations of GPS. A systematic effort is lacking, however. It’s a worrisome failure, given the importance of PNT and GPS in the modern economy.

Brad Glosserman is deputy director of and visiting professor at the Center for Rule-Making Strategies at Tama University as well as senior adviser (nonresident) at Pacific Forum. He is the author of “Peak Japan: The End of Great Ambitions” (Georgetown University Press, 2019).