Spotlight

IEEE Spectrum recently featured an article discussing centimeter-accurate GPS positioning for automated driving. Dr. Todd Humphreys discussed why centimeter-accurate GPS positioning is necessary, as well as some of the challenges that have yet to be solved.

“When there’s a standard deviation of 10 cm, the probability of slipping into next lane is low enough—meaning 1 part in a million” [Humphreys] said. This is opposed to the current meter-level accurate GPS tracking, which can increase the probability of lane slipping up to 1 or 10 – or maybe higher.

However, there are still some obstacles remaining, one of which is the time it takes for a centimeter-accurate GPS signal to converge. Right now, that time could be up to 5 minutes. According to Humphreys, that amount of time would be unacceptable to most users: “My vision of the modern driver is one who’s impatient, who wants to snap into 10-cm-or-better accuracy and push the ‘autonomy’ button.”

See a video overview here, or read the paper.

A recent NBC News article on the threat of GPS jamming and spoofing featured comments and insight from Dr. Todd Humphreys. The article also cites some interesting cases of intentional GPS jamming in Europe and the UK.

“The threat to the Global Positioning System (GPS) — the critical space-based navigational, positional and timing network — is escalating as potentially more destructive “spoofing” devices become readily available.”

“Humphreys estimates that … “the difficulty of mounting a spoofing attack has dropped by maybe a factor of a hundred since 2012,” when he first raised the alarm.”

Read the full story on NBC News website.

Take a look at our latest paper on the topic:
GNSS Spoofing and Detection

Dr. Todd Humphreys recently co-authored an article on GPS spoofing defenses with Dr. Mark Psiaki. This article is the cover story of the August 2016 issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine.

“Cellphone towers, stock exchanges, and the power grid all rely at least partly on GPS for precise timing. A well-coordinated spoof could interrupt communications, confuse automated financial traders, and inflict crippling power outages. In a worst-case scenario, a spoofer’s operator could overtake airplanes or ships to induce a crash, facilitate a heist, or even kidnap a VIP.”

“There are three main ways to protect against GPS spoofing: cryptography, signal-distortion detection, and direction-of-arrival sensing. No single method can stop every spoof, but Psiaki’s team has found that combining strategies can provide a reasonably secure countermeasure that could be commercially deployed.”

Read the full story on IEEE Spectrum website.

Take a look at our latest paper on the topic:
GNSS Spoofing and Detection

Austin, TX — Dr. Todd Humphreys and his students at the UT Radionavigation Lab recently demonstrated lane-departure warning system at the University of Texas at Austin campus deployed on a vehicle.

“While it may only be a centimeter at a time, what a University of Texas at Austin professor and his team have been able to accomplish is a monumental step in making autonomous vehicles a part of everyday life.”

“By working with local start-up, RadioSense, and using an app called Lane Watcher, the team is now able to demonstrate the accuracy of the GPS technology. Though the app won’t need to be used with the GPS, it helps to demonstrate visually what’s going on in the brains of the car. The app will show your vehicle on the road and immediately change colors when the car begins to drift.”

Read the full story and watch the video on KXAN website.

Take a look at our latest papers on the topic:
A Dense Reference Network For Mass Market Centimeter Accurate Positioning
On the Feasibility of cm-Accurate Positioning via a Smartphone’s Antenna and GNSS Chip

Austin, TX — Dr. Todd Humphreys and his students at the UT Radionavigation Lab have built an outdoor arena for testing automated drones as a part of the Machine Games project. KXAN News recently covered this story.

“There is a lot to learn when it comes to the technology behind drones and how it could eventually affect our everyday lives. That’s what researchers at the University of Texas are looking to answer with the Machine Games project.”

“The overall goal of the project is to make drones a part of everyday life, helping with tasks from searching for an open parking spot to delivering a pizza without human assistance. UT Professor Todd Humphreys says that drone technology is primitive and they are in the beginning stages of discovering all it can really do in the next few years.”

Read the full story and watch the video on KXAN website.

The New Yorker featured an article on GPS: its importance in our lives and its vulnerability to spoofing attacks. Research related to GPS spoofing at the UT Radionavigation Lab was the center of attention in this write-up by Greg Milner.

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security classifies sixteen infrastructure sectors—including dams, agriculture, health care, emergency services, and information technology—as critical, and therefore particularly vulnerable to sabotage. All but three require G.P.S. for essential functions.” … “An expert in software-defined radio—the modification of radio signals with a computer, as opposed to mixers, amplifiers, and other hardware—Humphreys used a general-purpose processor to build what he calls a “formidable lying machine,” a box that “listens” to the G.P.S. signal, gradually builds a bogus signal that aligns perfectly with the real, and then slowly overtakes it.”

Read the full story on The New Yorker website.

Austin, TX — “Imagine a GPS that can place you within a centimeter of where you are located on a map. This type of accuracy would not only help keep you and your family safe, but it could potentially help drivers navigate the roads better. It’s called precise vehicle positioning and it’s 100 times more accurate than your standard GPS. University of Texas professor Todd Humphreys has been working on the project for four years.” 

The UT Radionavigation Lab is working on making Austin the first city in the world with mass-market centimeter-accurate GPS. To acquire this accuracy, 20 solar powered reference stations will be placed around Austin by the end of May. You can think of this network of 20 reference stations as smart infrastructure that make it possible to use a $50 device, instead of a $500 or $5000 device, to locate a bicyclist, a bus, or a car within its lane of travel. KXAN news covered this story featuring Dr. Humphreys and his students.

Read the full story and watch the video clip on the KXAN website.

Take a look at our latest papers on the topic:
A Dense Reference Network For Mass Market Centimeter Accurate Positioning
On the Feasibility of cm-Accurate Positioning via a Smartphone’s Antenna and GNSS Chip

Berkeley, CA — Dr. Humphreys delivered the Hyundai Distinguished Lecture at UC Berkeley.  The seminar series is a feature of the Hyundai Center of Excellence at UC Berkeley.  

Precise and reliable location is one of the primary challenges of vehicle automation. Driver safety demands utter reliability yet the economics of the mass market demand commodity-level costs. In his presentation, Dr. Humphreys argued that low-cost and robust centimeter-accurate satellite navigation is possible and is a must-have component of automated vehicle sensor suites. Such a system under development at the University of Texas at Austin is 100 times more precise than standard GPS and 100 times less expensive than existing precision GPS systems.

Download the presentation.

Take a look at our latest papers on the topic:
A Dense Reference Network For Mass Market Centimeter Accurate Positioning
On the Feasibility of cm-Accurate Positioning via a Smartphone’s Antenna and GNSS Chip

“For at least two years, the Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad could see what the Israeli military’s surveillance drones saw. That’s the accusation of Israeli prosecutors, who this week arrested a man [Maagad Ben Juwad Oydeh] they saw hacked into the drones’ video feeds. Israeli authorities have provided only the barest details of Oydeh’s background and alleged crimes. The drone hack is possibly the most dramatic of Oydeh’s alleged crimes, if not the most useful for terrorist planners.”

Dr. Todd Humphreys and Dr. Richard Langley (University of New Brunswick) explain how Oydeh could have managed to hack the drones’ video feed, and how Israeli authorities may have come to know about it.

Read the article on thedailybeast.com.

Dr. Todd Humphreys wrote an article for the February 2016 issue of IEEE ComSoc Technology News.

“Professor Todd Humphreys, an expert in the James Bond world of faking out GPS signaling, tells us what the latest news is for the reliability of the GPS systems that have become increasingly important to our everyday lives. Will GPS become the next front in the war between the modern world and the hackers and terrorists who wish to disrupt it? If so it will be engineers and not super spies who will save the day.”

Read the article on comsoc.org.