{"id":1840665,"date":"2025-05-16T10:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T14:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1840665"},"modified":"2025-05-16T10:29:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T14:29:20","slug":"exploring-gps-alternatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/05\/exploring-gps-alternatives\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring GPS Alternatives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In March the FCC issued a Notice of Inquiry to explore GPS alternatives<\/a>, citing increasing threats to the resiliency of the existing GPS network. GPS World<\/em> worries<\/a> that the U.S. may limit domestic access to non-U.S. navigation systems (Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS), which many devices support, for security reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breathless coverage in TechCrunch<\/em><\/a> for one such alternative, Tern AI<\/a>, a startup that promises GPS-free navigation. From what I can gather, it relies on a combination of car sensors, onboard maps and dead reckoning, helped along with a liberal sprinkling of AI fairy dust, to arrive at a fix within a few minutes. Now, I\u2019m reflexively skeptical of all things AI, so I\u2019m not holding my breath; this sounds like a modern-day Etak Navigator<\/a> with machine learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A joint project between Australia and India, involving RMIT University<\/a> and space firm SkyKraft<\/a>, is exploring setting up a regional navigation system based on low-earth orbit satellites<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GPS on the Moon: I\u2019ve reported previously<\/a> on the idea that Earth-orbiting GNSS satellites could be used for lunar navigation. The tech company GMV announced results of field testing for the LUPIN project, which aims to bring navigation to the moon based on lunar-orbiting satellites. Neither the press release<\/a> nor the coverage (Engadget<\/a><\/em>, Reuters<\/a>) is particularly revealing, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My, that\u2019s a lot of vague press releases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In March the FCC issued a Notice of Inquiry to explore GPS alternatives, citing increasing threats to the resiliency of the existing GPS network. GPS World worries that the U.S. may limit domestic access to… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[254,752],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-1840665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-gps","category-navigation","tag-moon","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1810022,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/11\/supergps-promises-ten-centimetre-accuracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840665,"position":0},"title":"SuperGPS Promises Ten-Centimetre Accuracy","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"24 November 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"It seems to be steam engine time for GPS alternatives. We\u2019ve already seen two proposals that suggest using constellations of low-flying satellites to provide greater accuracy and more resilience against signal blocking than GPS and other orbital navigation systems can provide. Now a research team in the Netherlands is developing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GPS"","block_context":{"text":"GPS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":764,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/gps-and-the-first-gulf-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840665,"position":1},"title":"GPS and the First Gulf War","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 February 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Scientific American on\u00a0how the U.S. military used GPS during the first Gulf War in 1991\u2014the first war in which GPS played a major role.\u00a0\"GPS would change warfare and soon became an indispensible asset for adventurers, athletes and commuters as well. The navigation system has become so ubiquitous, in fact, that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GPS"","block_context":{"text":"GPS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1808285,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/07\/gps-negatively-impacts-spatial-memory\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840665,"position":2},"title":"GPS Negatively Impacts Spatial Memory","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"27 July 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"Rebecca Solnit points to a 2020 study that attempts to measure the impact of using GPS navigation devices on our spatial memory. After assessing 50 drivers, researchers found that drivers with more GPS experience had worse spatial memory when navigating without GPS. But more significantly, it\u2019s a longitudinal study: 13\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GPS"","block_context":{"text":"GPS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1787444,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/06\/the-economic-impact-of-gps-and-gps-outages\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840665,"position":3},"title":"The Economic Impact of GPS\u2014and GPS Outages","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"20 June 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"A new study quantifies the economic benefits of GPS: in the U.S. alone, it estimates around $1.4 trillion in economic activity resulting from private-sector GPS use, about half of that coming from improvements in the telecommunications sector. (Roughly a quarter came from the telematics sector, and 15 percent from location-based\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Aviation"","block_context":{"text":"Aviation","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/aviation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/faa-gps-outage-300x148.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1830673,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/05\/russia-accused-of-jamming-civilian-flights-gps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840665,"position":4},"title":"Russia Accused of Jamming Civilian Flights\u2019 GPS","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"6 May 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"BBC News: \u201cRussia is causing disruption to satellite navigation systems affecting thousands of civilian flights, experts say. [...] The persistent disruption led Finland\u2019s flag carrier Finnair to suspend daily flights to Estonia\u2019s second largest city, Tartu, for a month, after two of its aircraft had to return to Helsinki due\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GPS"","block_context":{"text":"GPS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1832469,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/06\/quantum-navigation\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840665,"position":5},"title":"Quantum Navigation","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"28 June 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"Quantum navigation systems are being tested in Britain. Last month there was a successful test flight of an aviation system, and a system is being tested on test trains on the London Underground. (It\u2019s not clear to me whether these systems are related, but the U.K. has apparently been making\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GPS"","block_context":{"text":"GPS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1840665"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1840669,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840665\/revisions\/1840669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1840665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1840665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1840665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}