GPS and PNT services rely on a weak RF signal from GEO satellites that fly 20,000 kilometers overhead. With jamming and spoofing on the rise, military customers are looking for resilient alternatives to traditional GPS services. Quantum communication technology is one avenue that provides a highly secure timing signal.
We spoke with David Mitlyng, CEO of Xairos, to learn more. Listen to the full conversation, or read our top four takeaways below.
Takeaway 1: The timing signal from GPS is critical infrastructure for the modern world.
While many think of GPS as providing a positioning service, it also provides a timing signal that acts as critical infrastructure across the globe. “The majority of the nearly $2 trillion in economic benefit provided by GPS is as the clock for the world,” Mitlyng explained. “All networks, all financial transactions, all communications and data centers and power grids rely on that timing signal from GPS.”
If that timing signal ever failed, networks would quickly degrade, and a sufficiently long outage would result in complete loss of communication systems. Even in the case of a shorter outage, the loss of a timing signal means that all financial transactions become impossible. “I was recently at a conference where they talked about local GPS outages in the Middle East,” he said. “The first thing that was shut down were financial transactions.”
Imagine all commerce going down for hours at a time. In a world that relies heavily on GPS signal, this is becoming increasingly possible. “GPS is fairly well known for being a single point of failure for the modern world,” Mitlyng said.
Takeaway 2: Quantum communication uses entangled photons to provide a secure timing signal.
While a mention of quantum technology may immediately suggest quantum computing, Mitlyng clarified that quantum communication is an entirely different technological approach. “In this case, we’re using the quantum properties of photons, or particles of light.”
While quantum communications may be overlooked by the public, the necessary hardware and systems are much more mature and simple than those required for other quantum technologies; “you’re leveraging a fairly basic laser and detector technology that’s been around for about three decades,” he said. A variety of applications are possible by using the properties of entangled photons, from quantum networking to quantum radar and LIDAR.
“What we’re focused on is quantum time transfer,” Mitlyng said. “The secure and accurate delivery of time using these entangled photon systems.”
Takeaway 3: As jamming and spoofing attempts multiply, quantum communication is a secure alternative to RF-based GPS.
“The nice thing about using entangled photons is that there’s a security inherent with the entanglement,” Mitlyng said. “It somebody tries to jam it or spoof it, the entanglement is broken and both parties know it.”
For military customers, this makes quantum communications especially attractive. Jamming transmits a strong signal that overwhelms a weak GPS signal, while spoofing creates a fake GPS signal that convinces the receiver that it is in a different location or time—which is especially dangerous for military actors. “There have been documented cases where drones or uncrewed vehicles strayed into enemy territory and were shot down because they thought they were in friendly territory.”
Quantum communication for PNT is a highly attractive alternative to traditional systems. “It’s a provably authenticated source of timing and position… there’s nothing an adversary can do to block that.”
Takeaway 4: China is already putting quantum communication capabilities on their satellites.
“By some accounts, China is responsible for nearly half the global spending in quantum,” Mitlyng said, and China continues to pull ahead in the development and integration of quantum technologies. “They launched their first quantum satellite in 2017 and did a number of groundbreaking satellite-to-ground quantum demonstrations,” Mitlyng said. And they’ve already announced several more planned launches to LEO, MEO and GEO, that will incorporate quantum technologies.
The US, meanwhile, “doesn’t even have satellites of this caliber planned.” The US is also falling behind in PNT technologies. “It’s been reported by experts in the field that China’s BeiDou system, their answer to GPS, already has capabilities that are expanding above and beyond what GPS can do,” Mitlyng said.
To close the gap, military and commercial users will have to consider how to incorporate quantum communication technologies into existing satellite systems. And for a system that has depended on RF-based GPS signals for more than five decades, that will be a significant challenge.
For more about grandmaster clocks, AI/ML algorithms and the future of RF-based PNT, listen to the full podcast episode.
Explore More:
Servicing the Seven Billion GPS Devices on Earth with Commercial GPS PNT
Podcast: GPS, LEO and the Speed of Decision
Commercial PNT Actors Can Address Public GNSS Spoofing and Jamming Risks to Generate New Revenue
