Locata Corporation and UrsaNav have entered into a Technology Partnership specifically aimed at providing resilient PNT (Positioning, Navigation, and Timing) solutions to national governmental and commercial interests globally. Combining Locata’s high-accuracy local-area and UrsaNav’s very wide-area PNT produces a potent solution which lessens any nations’ dependency on easily disrupted and increasingly vulnerable space-based signals.
Locata has for many years been delivering proven centimeter-level positioning and unparalleled picosecond-level timing to the world’s most demanding users – including the USAF, NASA, and many globally significant commercial partners. Professional users in demanding industries like ports, mining, the military, aviation, automotive, logistics, indoor positioning, and high-accuracy timing depend on Locata systems every day for their livelihoods.
UrsaNav’s eLoran and LFPhoenix™ technologies provide nanosecond-level timing, meter-level positioning, and short-message-service-like data transmissions at distances often exceeding 1,000 miles over land, and 1,800 miles over water. Their Two-Way Low-Frequency Time and Frequency Transfer (TWLFTFT) service is embedded in the PNT signal, providing a wireless timing synchronization conduit between any set of transmission sites. When UTC-synchronized time is injected into any transmission site (i.e., “node”), say from USNO/NIST, NPL, or BIPM, it can then be securely networked to every other node in view. UrsaNav’s patented encryption techniques can be applied to the entire signal, or any component.
Combining these already-proven technologies enables development of national-level terrestrial positioning and timing systems which are resilient, sovereign-controlled, and flexible enough to meet both very long haul “backbone” and local high-accuracy Critical Infrastructure needs. With built-in failover capability and overlapping coverage, over reliance on space can be mitigated. Many publicly available reports show both Locata and UrsaNav technologies have been tested by the US and the UK under extreme GPS jamming and spoofing conditions, and yet they continued to provide the PNT their users require.
The partners agree that a system-of-systems approach for resilient PNT must include a GNSS component, a fiber component, and a robust terrestrial wireless component that can be used to distribute solid PNT over nationally controlled radio frequencies.
The interlocking terrestrial capabilities developed by Locata and UrsaNav are unique in the PNT industry, are easily integrated with other PNT solutions, and can operate in standalone, interleaved, or layered modes – the very definition of a system-of-systems approach. Together, they can provide the core technology platform for purely national or cooperative international PNT services.
Locata’s and UrsaNav’s interlocking technologies fulfill the wireless portion of the system-of-systems template outlined in the MarRINav Report, and provide considerable benefits to secure Critical National Infrastructure – for nations, service providers and users alike.