Spotlight

October 2021: RNL alumnus Dr. Lakshay Narula (PhD, 2020) won the Bradford W. Parkinson Award, recognizing an outstanding graduate student in the field of Position, Navigation, Timing (PNT) and/or Applications.  Lakshay Narula’s Ph.D. dissertation is a substantial and foundational contribution to the PNT community. It makes four primary contributions, one of which has already been favorably recognized by the ION community: his work in all-weather precise positioning for automated vehicles, published at the ION PLANS 2020 conference, was awarded the Walter Fried award — the conference’s highest honor — for its technical depth and potential impact.  As fully developed in his dissertation, this work offers both novel theory and a fully-functional experimental pipeline with impressive field-test results.

The announcement can be found here.

October 2021: Dr. Mark Psiaki won the 2021 Institute of Navigation (ION) Kepler Award, the highest award in the navigation community.  The Kepler Award is awarded annually to honor an individual for sustained and significant contributions to the development of satellite navigation during their lifetime (can be thought as the navigation “hall of fame”).  Dr. Psiaki set a standard of rigor, clarity, and thoroughness in addressing key estimation and signal processing problems in PNT.  Dr. Psiaki was RNL director Todd Humphreys’s Ph.D. advisor at Cornell.

The full announcement can be accessed here.

October 2021: Dr. Todd Humphreys presented on Resilient and Robust PNT at the Joint Navigation Conference, saying we need “backups on backups on backups.”  Within this talk, he discussed GNSS vulnerabilities and threats as well as defense mechanisms.  He included real-world examples such as: spoofing an iPhone, UAV, and super-yacht, “crop circles” in China, and pin-pointing sources of interference from Low Earth Orbit. 

The full set of slides can be found here.

September 2021: Authors of new PNT textbook: Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, met in-person at the ION GNSS+ conference.  The textbook covers the latest developments in PNT technologies, including integrated satellite navigation, sensor systems, and civil applications and features RNL director Todd Humphrey, RNL alumnus Zak Kassas, and RNL “grandfather” Mark Psiaki. 

The full list of authors included in the picture are: James Farrell (ch. 46), Sabrina Ugazio (ch. 10), Benjamin Ashman (ch. 22), Brad Parkinson (ch. 1), John Betz (cc. 2, 3), Mark Psiaki (ch. 25), John Raquet (cc. 35, 48, 50), Todd Humphreys (ch. 25), Charles Toth (ch. 51), Zak Kassas (cc. 38, 43).  Bottom row, left to right: Boris Pervan (ch. 12), Mathieu Joerger (cc. 23, 60), Todd Walter (cc 13, 43, 64), Frank van Diggelen (cc. 1, 17, 18)

The book can be found here.

September 2021: The FAA authorized the MITRE Corporation to perform a series of tests that used commercial smartphones inside of aircraft as a method to detect GPS spoofing.  These tests involved a feature of wireless cellular networks called Timing Advance that is available through standard 4G and 5G wireless networks operated by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.  A range estimate can be deduced from the basestations, which serves as a check for the GPS solution.  GNSS spoofing expert Dr. Humphreys mentions that this technology is what he would hope the FAA would look at, as it could be an effective way to detect spoofing at a cheap cost.  

The full article can be found here.

August 2021:  Dr. Todd Humphreys was featured in NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.  The segment focused on AIS spoofing in the Black Sea, specifically the contested waters of Russian-occupied Crimea.  U.S. and European naval vessels tend to be the primary victims, however, there are Russian vessels spoofed in the same manner.  Dr. Humphreys suggests that Russia could be behind this and that they’re spoofing their own ships in part to throw off suspicion. But it’s also possible that this is some third party.

The full NPR segment (including transcript) can be found here.

July 2021:  Over 100 warships from at least 14 European countries, Russia, and the United States appear to have had their AIS location spoofed since August 2020.  Amongst these unlucky warships, some of the spoofed tracks show the warships approaching contested areas, such as, foreign naval bases or intruding into disputed waters.  These activities could escalate tension in hot spots like the Black Sea and the Baltic.  Dr. Humphreys comments, “While I can’t say for sure who’s doing this, the data fits a pattern of disinformation that our Russian friends are wont to engage in.”  He also says AIS could be more secure by adding digital signatures to each message.  

The full Wired article can be accessed here.

July 2021:  Todd Humphreys has been elected Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) “for improving understanding of GNSS vulnerabilities and pioneering the use of alternate techniques to achieve resilience.” Established in 1947 in London, the institute aims to advance the art, science and practice of navigation while promoting knowledge of the subject and its associated sciences such as positioning, timing and tracking.

Read more about it here.

June 2021:  There was tension in the Black Sea near Crimea, Ukraine as Russian authorities claimed to have fired warning shots at the UK Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender; however, the UK Ministry of Defence denies the event ever happening.  Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking logs showed that the HMS Defender traversed the Black Sea and sailed within a few kilometres of a Russian naval base at Sevastopol, but a live web cam feed proved the HMS Defender to be docked at Odessa, Ukraine.  The false AIS tracks indicate GPS and AIS spoofing was involved.  Dr. Todd Humphreys comments on this, saying “it’s easy to gin up a fake AIS signal purporting to be the Royal Navy’s HMS Defender and broadcast it around the Black Sea with some provocative-looking tracks.“  Humphreys says he has seen AIS fakery before, but never for a warship. He too suggests that the most likely source is Russian disinformation – to sow confusion.

Read the New Scientist article here.