Spotlight

May 2026: Weeks before the SpaceX IPO, Starlink has shut down a GPS alternative that most customers never knew about. Other customers found access to built-in location features hidden away in a Debug menu to get coarse position estimates — a feature of immense value to those in regions with rising GNSS interference.

Starlink is of key interest to low Earth orbit (LEO) PNT research. “The beauty of Starlink as a backup to GNSS is that it’s such a different system—frequencies 10 times higher, bandwidths 10 to 100 times wider, power 100 to 1,000 times stronger, [and] satellites 100 times more proliferated,” said the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys. Current PNT solution accuracy is still limited compared to GNSS. The RNL demonstrated mock fused LEO GNSS — with Starlink satellites supplying real-time clocks and orbit corrections — with solutions accurate within 10 meters, albeit with minutes-long processing delays. Dr. Humphreys asserted that “we’re now refining our techniques so it can be done in tens of seconds rather than tens of minutes.”

Starlink may have shut down its “cheat code,” but many other methods of its exploitation remain. For further discussion of PNT solutions using Starlink and other LEO satellite constellations—including a feature from RNL alumnus Dr. Zak Kassas—read more with Ars Technica.

April 2026: Starlink users will soon be unable to access their location on their communications terminals, leaving many confused and upset. The gRPC API on Starlink terminals lends users an opportunity to pull the coarse location generated by the terminal, even in the presence of spoofing and jamming. “Starlink PNT, as it’s called, has a cheat code for those who know [it],” says the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys. “And it has been getting increasingly accurate, from 100 meters a few years ago to about 20 meters now.”

As to why Starlink decided to end Starlink PNT, Dr. Humphreys has a few theories. “SpaceX might not want the liability of providing a location service whose accuracy is decent but variable… They also might be preparing to launch a fee-based version of Starlink PNT and so are ending free access.”

Read more with Inside GNSS.

March 2026: With rising tensions in the Middle East, low-cost Iranian-designed Shahed drones have raised eyebrows in the intelligence community. The Shahed, constructed from lightweight radar-absorbing materials such as plastic and fiberglass, explode on impact and are resistant to jamming.

Studies have shown that these drones use antenna interference suppression techniques. Many experts surmise the use of Chinese BeiDou and Russian GLONASS navigation systems, while others suspect the application of a WWII-era Long-Range Navigation (LORAN) system. Regardless, the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys asserts that “they have put [the Shahed] together using off-the-shelf parts, but it has… many of the capabilities that U.S. military GPS equipment has.”

For more thoughts on the design and capability of the Shahed drones, find out more with The Korea Times.

March 2026: Al Jazeera reported rumors that Iran may be using the Chinese BeiDou Satellite (BDS) navigation system to target Middle Eastern Israeli and US military assets. The news outlet continued, presenting a claim by Military analyst Patricia Marins that “unlike the civilian-grade GPS signals that were paralyzed in 2025, BDS-3’s military-tier B3A signal is essentially unjammable.”

The Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation (RNTFND) consulted the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys to dispel the claim of an “essentially unjammable” signal, who responds that “I doubt BeiDou has some magical remedy to ‘filter out’ spoofing. They’re subject to the same physics and asymmetrical information the rest of us are.” Further, Humphreys states that he “would not be surprised if Iran’s drones and missiles use BDS. [Rather,] it would be more surprising if they got access to the military codes of BDS.”

For more about the claims in the original article, as well as Dr. Humphreys’ rebuttals, follow along here.

March 2026: Commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz—carrying 20% of the world’s oil—have nearly ground to a halt in the face of increased GNSS interference from the Iran war. GNSS spoofing has made ships appear to move in circles, even when not moving. For a single ship with an experienced crew, visual cues may be sufficient to transit the Strait, but this issue multiplies when ships’ automatic identification systems (AIS) rebroadcast their erroneous positions.

“It’s just chaos on your electronic chart display,” said the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys. These false positions are “picked up by AIS receivers across the coast, and that’s what other ships see.” With over 100 untracked vessels moving through the Strait—which spans 21 miles at its narrowest—risk increases immensely. “These are enormous ships that take kilometers to slow down and change direction,” Dr. Humphreys continued. “Very few captains would be willing to put a supertanker through that narrow strait.”

Dr. Zak Kassas, RNL alumnus and professor of electrical engineering at the Ohio State University, has been developing alternative navigation systems that exploit less-frequently jammed signals of opportunity, such as cellular signals and LEO megaconstellations. To this, Dr. Kassas said, “When we started, it was sort of a nice thing to have. But now, it is a pressing need. It could be a life-or-death situation.”

To learn more about the state of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, read the more detailed discussion with Scientific American.

March 2026: Due to conflict in the Middle East, approximately 1,000 ships in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman have experienced disruptions in navigation. “Many ships only listen to the original civilian GPS signal, which is called the L1 C/A signal,” the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys said. “You will not find any aircraft flying in the world today whose built-in GPS receiver is capable of tracking and interpreting signals other than GPS L1 C/A… [It’s] out of date by 15 years.” With the tools and techniques freely available, jamming and spoofing such a signal is simple. The consequences of electronic warfare to ships extend beyond navigation: GPS synchronizes onboard clocks and disciplines radar equipment. These systems contribute to the safety of ships and unassuming civilians on nearby shores.

It’s likely that GNSS interference is being inflicted from both sides of the conflict. At the cost of disrupting their own lives, Gulf states may be directing systems towards their own shores to redirect Iran-constructed Shahed drones. “Even if their own air traffic or maritime traffic or their delivery drivers… are affected by GPS jamming and spoofing, they’ll do it, just like Israel did,” Humphreys added.

To learn more about the satellite systems involved in the Middle Eastern theater, read more here.

January 2026: Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are finding new ways to relieve the sprawling, congested infrastructure surrounding the Forty Acres home to UT. Waymo and Robotaxi services, as well as CapMetro’s nascent self-driving transit buses, are some of the methods being deployed to encourage ridesharing and public transport.

The RNL has developed methods of reliable navigation for autonomous vehicles. This enhanced awareness can improve cooperative maneuvers, such as zipper merges, to speeds impossible for human drivers. “Tight automated zipper merging mimics what water molecules would do as they encounter a bottleneck: fuse together in one stream and speed up, not down, to allow a continual flow,” the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys said.

To learn more about the University of Texas’ contributions to analyzing and managing traffic, read here.

November 2025: Since mid-November, electromagnetic interference has descended on the Caribbean. Amid a U.S. military buildup in the area—including attacks on alleged drug-running boats—the U.S. FAA has issued a critical warning to commercial pilots. Many commercial aviation navigation systems still rely on the traditional L1 GPS signal now threatened by increased interference. “Aviation receivers are often 20 years old,” said the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys. “L5 would be a big help here, given the wider band frequency.” Furthermore, according to Dr. Humphreys, GPS interference can affect satellites in LEO, such as the Starlink and OneWeb constellations.

Experts tie the jamming to military actions in the region, as modern naval fleets often employ GPS jamming in conflict. “A carrier strike group is susceptible to attacks from large swarms of drones,” Humphreys said, and is an important consideration to both Venezuelan and U.S. naval assets.

For more, read the Bloomberg article here.